Letter: Democracy threatened

The United States is a democratic republic. This means that our system of government has some essential elements of a democracy. Unfortunately, we are losing these essential elements.

One essential element in a democracy is that the majority rules, yet the majority of Americans did not want Trump as president. A democracy must have elections free from internal and external coercion. We no longer have free elections due to Russian interference. A democracy must have a free press. The press is now viewed as fake news and the enemy of the people.

A democracy cannot have a leader that is above the law, yet Trump and his followers assert that a president cannot be subpoenaed, and the future Supreme Court may concur. A democracy must have an electorate that is informed. Our electorate is ill-informed because of the barrage of lies, distortions, and anti-science promulgated by the current administration and FOX News.

Worst of all, the threat to our democracy is not being recognized by the ruling party or the public. We could end up with a fascist government ruled by a fascist dictator. Don’t believe it? Yeah, that’s the problem.