Six-and-a-half years ago (Sept. 18, 2018), a guest commentary of mine entitled, “Americans Must Break With Trump,” appeared in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise. I would like to quote in part from that commentary at this time because my words, as it turns out, were a portent of things to come, of where we now find ourselves as a nation:

“They said it couldn’t happen here. Not in this country. Not to the United States of America. But it could. And it is. I am talking here about nothing less than the prospect of authoritarian rule at the highest office of the land and the end of American Democracy as we know it.

“This country — and so much of what I believed it stood for — its values, its ‘exceptionalism,’ its respect for the common people, the working class, the downtrodden, people of every possible ethnicity, the entire immigrant population that gave birth to America’s greatness, is now under siege at the hands of an aspiring dictator, an imposter of pretended patriotism, a con-man with manipulative skills the likes of which this country has never before experienced, who knows no bounds in his disregard for truth, law, justice, the people of the United States and, above all, the Constitution itself, which he has pledged to defend but, for all purposes, is doing his utmost to undermine.

“I have witnessed numerous historic events over the course of my existence. I was old enough to join in the celebration of the end of World War II in 1945, and mature enough to appreciate the significance of the defeat of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and fascism. I am also a veteran (having served with the U.S. Army in Germany throughout the course of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962), unlike our five-time draft dodger President, who unabashedly equates his sexual conquests and avoidance of sexually transmitted disease over the course of the Vietnam War to serving in combat, and denigrates Americans who died in war as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers.’ So, yes, I have seen and experienced a great many things over the years. But I have never seen anything that begins to approach what is presently happening to this country as a result of the hate-filled rhetoric, fear-mongering and divisive leadership of our current Disruptor-in-Charge. He is not bringing this country together, let alone making it great again. He is doing his best to tear it apart.”

I proceeded in my commentary to admonish the partisan performance of the Republican Congress and Senate — putting party and personal gain before country which, unfortunately, continues unabated to this day — to exhort the nation to wake up and take seriously the actions of this president and his administration, to no longer excuse or dismiss them as just another episode in Trump’s latest version of a long-running TV reality show, but to recognize them for what they are, a threat to our national security and way of life. Donald Trump, to borrow from NY Times columnist David Brooks at the time, “… is first and foremost an immoralist, whose very being was defined by dishonesty, cruelty, betrayal and cheating long before he put on political garb.” Morton Halperin, who once served on Richard Nixon’s National Security Council, was asked by The New Yorker’s Susan B. Glasser at one point what Halperin thought of the proliferating Trump-Nixon comparisons. According to Glasser, Halpern insisted, strongly, that Nixon wasn’t nearly as damaging to the institution of the presidency as Trump has been. “He’s far worse than Nixon,” Halpern told me, “certainly as a threat to the country.” That was then. This is now.

Our recent 2024 presidential election was not just about the traditional choice between two candidates of opposing political parties. Rather, it was about the choice between Democracy or Fascism, stability or chaos, competence or incompetence, truth–the lifeblood of democracy–or lies, unity or tribalism, decency or indecency, empathy or indifference, love or hate. These are but some of the choices that were before us then, and remain before us now as a people. They will be among our defining characteristics as a nation in the days ahead.

John Radigan has made it terrifyingly clear in his recent Enterprise guest commentary (“On Saving America, II,” 3/26/25), that we are presently faced with the very real prospect of the end of 250 years of the American Experiment, of American Democracy as we know it — despite its faults and shortcomings — that so many of us have come to cherish and revere, in exchange for being ruled by a tyrant bent on destroying every pillar of the state. There will be no turning back in such an event. We shall live with the results of such an outcome, I fear, for years, if not generations. Despite the gravity of the situation, I remain hopeful that we, the American people, will rise to the challenge of one of the gravest threats to our wellbeing in the history of the Republic. Donald Trump inadvertently has provided us with the opportunity to rediscover ourselves, to recommit to what we really and truly believe in and stand for. That opportunity is now staring us in the face.

It is time for us to restore the ideals of American democracy. It is time to move this country forward, not backwards. The alternative is to wring our hands in despair, to simply give up, to succumb to the forces of fear and retribution. In that event, we may ultimately have to confess to ourselves, our children and our grandchildren that, despite our belief that it couldn’t happen here, it did.

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Joe Mercurio lives in Saranac Lake.