Scott Ritter uses his Jan. 13 article on Substack titled, “Losing the Republic” as a call to action to the American people. He blames America’s retreat to its comfort zone of passivity as the root of the problem. Ritter writes, “This is a failure on the part of we, the people … to properly administer the functioning of a Constitutional Republic.”
Ritter also writes that we are “yielding to the very despotism [Ben] Franklin warned about.” He writes, “We have a despot in power who doesn’t believe in the Constitution, or any form of legal restraint,” because “He believes only in his own sense of ‘morality.’” Ritter continues: “We have a despot who invades other lands, kidnaps foreign leaders, and declares himself President of another nation, despite Constitutional prohibitions against all of this behavior. We have a President who steals the mineral resources of another nation (a crime), seeks to sell these resources outside frameworks authorized by Congress (a crime), and manages these resources personally (a crime). The narcissism of this American despot has reached the level of mental illness which impairs his ability to function normally. When a President who took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution flagrantly disregards this oath and the Constitution, then the notion of a Constitutional Republic is moot.”
Ritter adds: “The current despot promised to keep America out of wars. And now we are a nation defined by war. The despot promised to reduce defense spending by half. And now he proposes a 50% increase in defense spending to fund the wars he promised he would avoid. He has sent federal troops and agents to occupy American cities. All because he believes his sense of ‘morality’ trumps the rule of law set forth by the document that defines who and what we are as a people and a nation—the Constitution. The American people have lost faith in this foundational defining document because they are ignorant of both its history and its contents. Today we have federal agents hunting down immigrants, who were prepared to take a test of citizenship contingent on their ability to pass a test on the Constitution. They are hunted down by federal agents who could not pass such a test. We have become the modern-day Rome, ruled by a modern-day Caligula. The despot is inflicted with a severe case of narcissistic personality disorder. His mental illness manifests itself in ways harmful to the republic.”
