To the Journal editor:

I live among a large segment of the silent majority who mind their own business and only step in when the innocent or helpless are being threatened.

This is the training that I received from my World War II veteran father who returned from the Pacific war after chasing the fascist/Nazi enemy back to their home and then, miraculously, helped them recover without reparations. We gave them democracy, capitalism, and individual choice. The trilogy of our American success story.

I see this precious set of freedoms being slowly removed from all Americans by a former president, his stolen party, and his very vocal and often violent followers. Incredibly I see many Americans unwilling to confront this new form of domestic terrorism.

There are Americans who in full view of the evidence being presented are calling it a ‘witch hunt’ and are advising us to focus on inflation and immigration instead. This diversionary tactic has allowed politically criminal behavior to expand into domestic terrorism. Those who ignore these threats to our American democracy are complicent in the biggest crime of this century which is eroding our individual rights and American democracy.

So here is a variation on an old and favorite story with an emphasis on the players and the audience instead of the lead actors. A Christmas play is unfolding that is both complicated and beautiful. Everyone has a part and are performing well until an uninvited actor arrives and begins to interfere in a clumsy and very stupid manner. He acts like he has a part but he doesn’t.

The result is he begins a subtle disruption of the play, the players are becoming less spontaneous and their slight hesitancy is causing their previously integrated acting to unravel in very embarrassing ways. Now the ‘uninvited’ is increasing his self-centered and awkward behavior and the play is unraveling and becoming painful to watch.

The moral of the play? A cast of corrupted actors can magnify bad behavior into a democratic failure of massive proportions.

Those of you who think that this is a silly story are also the ones who are ignoring the bad actor’s chaos in action and are enabling criminality in American politics.

I know what my World War II veteran dad would say. “Stand up, defend the innocent and helpless, do your duty.”

Do it today. Vote your conviction in the upcoming elections.