The American Republic is on the Verge of Collapse

Andy Ostroy
3 min readJul 31, 2020

There is nothing more important that Americans can do November 3rd than vote. Nothing. No matter what it takes. I repeat, no matter what it takes. Even if it means risking your job, your health, your children’s education…nothing. Because if Donald Trump wins re-election, our democracy and everything you love about this country will be gone. Because without a functioning democracy your job, health and your kid’s future won’t mean a damn thing.

This is not hyperbole. I’m a realist not an alarmist. American democracy only works when the checks and balances the Framers built into the system work. But those with oversight roles are abdicating their Constitutional responsibility. The system does not work when the Republican-controlled Senate and the Justice Department (run by corrupt, power-hungry Trump-sycophant Attorney General Bill Barr) defend and enable Trump’s corruption and treason…allowing him to consistently lie, cheat, steal and threaten our national security to serve his own ends.

Trump caused a firestorm when he tweeted Wednesday morning that the election should be “delayed”. This after claiming for months, absent one shred of evidence, that the election will be “rigged” because of widespread mail-in voting fraud…while claiming, incorrectly, that there’s a difference between mail-in (‘bad!’) and absentee (‘good!’) voting . Even if you’re wearing a red MAGA hat, that should scare the living shit out of you.

Never before has a sitting president so blatantly undermined our free and fair elections with the help of hostile foreign governments, complicit Republican leadership and a servile gaggle of Fox ass-kissers like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Lou Dobbs. And now Trump’s’s telegraphing he’ll push to delay the election, simply because he knows he’s going to lose (he wouldn’t be pushing to delay if he believes he’s going to win).

Trump’s not-so-thinly-veiled threat to postpone the election (which legally he cannot do) received a major rebuke from Republicans:

“Never in the history of the country, through wars, depressions and the Civil War, have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Andy Ostroy

Director, producer, podcaster, writer, resistor, non-profit-supporter of women filmmakers