Letters to the editor June 25

An ailing nation

Whenever we, or a family member or friend is sick, we rally around them to help find a cure. We consult doctors, seeks answers, pray for healing and hope. Sometimes the illness, unfortunately, is fatal. Sometimes it results in permanent disability.

And sometimes, we don’t even realize we are ill, ignore or deny the symptoms, or we don’t seek treatment until it is too late.

Our country is sick. The disease is corruption, incompetence, self-dealing and vanity. Having declared our independence from the British empire 250 years ago, and codified our new nation’s freedoms 239 years ago, the iconic opening words of our Constitution, “We the people,” have been attacked by the pestilence of “Me the president ... .”

There is a segment of our population that denies this illness. There are others who seek a cure from the rot of complacency, corruption and idolatry that is attacking our body politic. This disease is not necessarily new to our government. But rarely, if ever, have the antidotes of decency, compassion and commitment to the golden rule been so ineffective for so long.

Maybe it will take 11 years to find a permanent cure to this disease: 11 years before the 250th anniversary of the signing of our Constitution. After all, the blood that was shed and the sacrifice expended between 1776 and 1787 to bring this nation forward can serve as a reasonable timeline for restoration of the ideals expressed in the 1787 preamble to our constitution: “... to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility ... promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity ... .”

Over the course of the last 10 years we have tested the health and well-being of this model of democracy. Our body politic has been attacked by all means of nasty and virulent “bugs,” never imagined by the writers of our Constitution: specifically, an imperial presidency allowed to run rampant without the checks and balances expected from Congress and the Supreme Court.

When we humans are attacked by new variants of viruses or bacteria — “bugs” — our bodies can develop immunities, sometimes on their own, often aided by vaccines. Although our country is sick, it is far from dying. It will take time to recover from this illness of illegitimacy that has infected our presidency. But we can. We will. We must.

Perhaps 11 years is a reasonable timeframe to cure this sickness before it kills our democracy: the 250th celebration of “this Constitution for the United States of America.” Then we can look back to July 4, 2026, and take pride in having restored all that was lost and damaged by the worst president in U.S. history.

— Roger Hopkins, Columbia Falls