Many readers will remember, perhaps with a measure of nostalgia, the public school procedure operative in our early grades to secure permission to visit the “boy’s” or “girl’s” room, One would earnestly and, often, longingly, raise our hand, until recognized by the teacher, then request permission to leave the classroom to visit the bathroom, Provided that, in the nuanced individual case, the franchise was not tactically overused (suggesting another motive for leaving class) the request was granted. The young student was procedurally handed a wooden pass (often made in the ” Boy’s Wood Shop”) to advise any designated hallway inquisitor the bearer had been granted authoritative permission to be absent from his assigned class. Upon return, the student would, gratefully, return the wooden hall pass to the teacher.
Our adult lives are similarly governed by traditional behavior and beliefs and practices inured in us by our family and familiar associates, unfortunately, including our thematic subject of choice of voter preference. This practice, in the context of representative democracy, is less useful or appropriate than the volitional vote, based upon an individualized decision. based on one’s perception of events. Relative to our Nation’s two-party political configuration, many individuals are inclined to vote, for the party candidate their family, or friendly associates are known to favor. Such sophomoric motivation is useless, and misleading, as failing to be democratically expressive of citizens’ preferences,
The “group-think” or social alliance motivation, has been an extremely hazardous phenomenon in our age of Trump-MAGA-affiliated loyalists who appear to favor the Trump-autocratic context of anti-democratic, extra-constitutional rule. The thoughtless, mind-epoxied consolidation of Trump’s cultish followers, seem to derive comfort in their “lemming-like” conglomeration of numerous followers, cultishly supporting Trump, irrespective of his adjudicated multi-criminality, demonstrated lack of moral compass, egoistic incompetence, and proclaimed intention to rule as a dictator ( N.B., lemmings are traditionally known for unthinkingly committing mass suicide).
As known, Donald Trump will be running on the Republican ticket, the latter party, presently inclusive of MAGA cultists as well as other long-time, committed Republicans who evince intimidation due to the substantial voting impact of the MAGA hoard., but nevertheless are fearful for the endurance of the Democratic Republic under another Trump Presidency. Most of the latter individuals have never voted Democratic In their long identification as Republicans and are trapped in the paradox of being caught between the Scilia of loyalty to the Republican Party and the Chartybdis of a disastrous demise of democracy, i.e., “between a rock and a hard place.”
The recent fortuitous, patriotic declarations of former Conservative, Republican Senator Liz Cheney, and most impactfully, of her father, Dick Cheney, the past United States Vice-President, (known by mainstream liberal Americans for his arch-conservative policies, as “Darth Vader,”) patriotically delivered a permissively needed analogous “Hall Pass” to traditional freedom-loving Republicans, permitting a vote against the democracy threatening Donald Trump and for the Democratic Nominee, Kamala Harris is, in this instance, in the interest of the democratic Nation; and that the same constitutes the citizen’s vote protective of democracy and not Democratic partisanship.
This historically important “Hall Pass” to traditional Republican voters represents an existential aid to the continuance of our democracy, and, notably, in an opposite directional dynamic to our analogous “Hall Pass,” prevents a voyage to the Trump political latrine.
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