Dear Editor:

Ten years ago, conservative Catholic scholar and political essayist Andrew Sullivan wrote, “In terms of our liberal democracy and constitutional order, Donald Trump is an extinction-level event.”

Those words have haunted me ever since; now their truth threatens all of us. In just two weeks, controlled by an unelected billionaire without a valid security clearance, Trump has seized our government with the intention of subverting it and replacing it in his own corrupt, megalomaniacal image: a self-coup.

Is this what tens of millions of honest, hard-working Trump voters really want? If so, we have lost the will to govern ourselves through institutions created by the Constitution and led by officials who honor their oaths to uphold the rule of law.

History shows that every form of national government has a term limit, many of them ending in catastrophic violence. Hitler’s was twelve years; ours has been 238 — so far. We came perilously close to ending it in 2021. Four years later, the criminals who attacked the Capitol are back on the street, lauded by the current president as patriotic heroes.

My mother and father’s generation was called on to defeat imperialistic and fascistic empires in history’s deadliest global conflict. With great courage, staggering sacrifice and unstinting labor, they succeeded. Now it is our turn to protect the democracy they fought and died for.

I hope we are equal to the challenge.

Bill Hammond

Boothbay