This essay is nearly a year old but is clearly worth reading again. When a conservative republican such as David Frum outlines how a pending autocracy can incrementally replace our system of checks and balances, and even the rule of law itself, then an entire nation needs to wake up and break out of its self-centered complacency. This is not about being conservative or liberal. It is not about being a republican or democrat. It is about preserving our democratic/republican form of government. The autocratic posturing of our national leaders is a threat to the very foundational core of our constitutional principles. For those interested, one can certainly find equivalent commentary from other notable conservatives such as George Will with the Washington Post. These authors are hardly liberals nor espouse a liberal agenda. Their concerns portend an incremental autocratic shift under the very noses of a nation too caught up in sound bites, rhetoric, and finger pointing. If ever there was a time when the society needed to be civically engaged, it is now. It is time to focus on our commonalities and not our differences. Let’s not replicate the restrictions of freedom that Americans inflicted on other Americans less than a century ago.
The Scholarly Participant 
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