“Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it.” - Frank Herbert

I spent my entire adult life until my recent retirement working for the government. That experience both reaffirmed my belief in what our republic stands for, and made me very cynical about the corruption of those ideals by the multi-generational ruling class that has arisen in our country. The events of the last several years have only served to show how vital it is that we course correct as a nation before we finish following the example set by Rome over a millennium ago and fade into history and obscurity.

Our founding fathers, despite the current political fashion of demonizing them, were brilliant men. They created a system of checks and balances within our government designed to prevent any one individual or group from gathering too much unilateral authority. They understood human nature and the corrupting influence of power.

The last couple of decades have seen a progressive undermining of those ideals by people who give them lip service, and cry about “existential threats to our democracy,” while they themselves subvert the democratic process, commit crimes with impunity, and initiate politically motivated criminal investigations and prosecutions to persecute their opposition and prevent any challenge to the power they’ve amassed.

We have multiple government officials, including former Presidents, connected to a convicted sex trafficker who dealt in underage prostitution, and the client list was never released. The same sex trafficker supposedly committed suicide in custody, the latest in a long list of convenient deaths surrounding one presidential family. I am a combat veteran and retired Chicago cop, and in three decades of service had fewer people in my professional circles die than the Clintons have. Correlation is not causality, but that is statistically improbable in the extreme.

One political party laughs off destroying evidence in a criminal investigation regarding classified emails being kept on a non-secure server, yet conducts a search warrant on a former president’s home over classified documents, citing a statute that has never been used in a criminal investigation or prosecution. When they were unhappy with losing a presidential election, they claimed it had been stolen. But when the other party echoes that claim, with some apparent justification, they cry sedition and insurrection. And meanwhile they flood our nation with illegal aliens and try to change voting laws, all in an attempt to curry more votes and amass power for themselves.

The same party continually attempts to chip away at the bill of rights. Free speech apparently means touting the party line, otherwise it’s hate speech and racism. The second amendment is constantly attacked under the guise of “common sense gun safety.” “Red flag laws” allow searches and seizures of firearms without due process, in direct violation of the fourth amendment.

We have elected and appointed officials turning a blind eye to public crime and violence, and even worse, weaponizing it for political gain. Public servants from both political parties selling out their constituents and becoming multimillionaires on salaries of under $200,000 a year, often from business dealings with foreign nations. At the same time, the IRS is being increased by enough agents to staff the combined police departments of New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

How do we turn this around? We are at what is undeniably a crucial point for our nation. If we can’t rebuild the integrity of our public institutions and our citizens’ faith in them, our republic is doomed to fail.

We need to hold government officials from both parties accountable. Our elections are not so compromised, at least in much of the country, that they have no effect. We need to use our votes to change the political culture of our government. Our elected officials must be made to understand that they must put their constituents first or be voted out of office. If we don’t do this, if we don’t manage to right our course as a nation, I am afraid we are in for dark times indeed.