The children shredded by AR-15 fire at Sandy Hook, Uvalde, and countless other mass shooting sites, did not have the protection of good guys with guns afforded Donald Trump. Yet a 20-year-old kid, sneaking out his dad’s AR-15 and buying ammo on the way to a rally, came within 2 inches of blowing off Donald Trump’s head. The real irony here is that all the people killed at the 301 mass shootings in the U.S., as of July 14, never had the ability to affect sane gun laws. Trump did.

But the cherry on the top of this surreal situation is the fallacy of “both sides are just as bad.” They are not. As far back as 2016, members of the Trump campaign called for Hillary Clinton to be executed on the national mall. Trump, during a national TV debate, threatened to put Clinton into jail. There are too many examples of Trump and his surrogates calling for violence since then to list. He facilitated an insurrection. A civil decision for sexual assault. Two impeachments. Praises the world’s most murderous dictators. On and on.

Now, Republicans say that to mention any of those realities, or Project 2025, would foster divisiveness. To mention the former Trump officials who have called him a threat to democracy and unfit for office is divisive? Speaking of real actions that were and are divisive would be divisive in itself?

Lovers of democracy shouldn’t let the smokescreen quiet them. This election remains a one-issue election: democracy or autocracy.

Herb Fox
Limerick