Last week’s editorial offered a very good history and analysis of how of the electoral college subverts democracy.
Another issue has been how the chosen electors never exercise their independent judgment in casting their actual votes.  That theory wasn’t too bad of an idea— they just didn’t realize that the process of choosing electors would be subverted by electors who guarantee that they won’t exercise their own judgment when it is needed.  The essential point, that every citizen’s vote should actually count equally, would go a long way towards the essential promise of America.
A simpler choice for voters: Billionaires never — ever — look out for anyone who works for a living. The only time they’re paying attention to us is when they’re figuring out how to bamboozle us with a shell game of one sort or another.  With all due respect - if you voted for Trump, you already knew him.  Now you’re going to find out what it means.
The Trump administration is about to declare a “national emergency” over immigration.  They don’t want us to remember — or ever think — that our immigrant parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents were the people who made America so great.  This non-existent “national emergency” is going to be the excuse for using our armed forces against our own citizens under the Insurrection Act.
As part of this scheme, they’re already talking about courts-martial to go after the generals — even the retired ones — who had to contend with the impossible evacuation from Afghanistan.
People forget that Trump made the deal with the Pashtun Afghans that gave up the enormous and easily-defended Bagram Air Base ahead of time.  The evacuation had to be done from the smaller and hard-to-defend airport next to downtown Kabul.  Biden was stuck with the disastrous terms of Trump’s pre-existing deal.  Trump is also talking about “review panels” for all the existing senior military leaders, threatening them with dismissal.
The people who came to America had their faults.  Ethnic cleansing of our Native Americans and slavery were accepted until we couldn’t stand it anymore.  But we also need to remember the heroism of people who just couldn’t stand being subservient to overly wealthy people who had inherited their wealth and status.  The American Experiment came out of that background.
Let’s not go back to where we came from, eh?
Dave Porter
Minneapolis