The enemy in D.C.

To the editor:

In 1905, George Santayana wrote “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This advice is especially important and relevant in the new year when, in a few weeks, a traitor who incited an insurrection to steal an election will become president of the United States.  

We may need to commemorate — every year on Jan. 6 — the defeat of Trump’s attempted coup by honorable members of Congress, and so many heroes from police officers to election officials to journalists and citizens-patriots who protected our Constitution, our judicial system and the respect for the civil rights of all Americans.  They paid a heavy price, including loss of life, loss of political careers, death threats to them and their families, and threats by Trump to arrest, imprison them and sue them.   

If Trump and his fellow traitors had won the day and nullified an honest election in 2021, would our rule of law and our Constitution have survived? Our precious Constitutional experiment can only survive and thrive if a majority of Americans believe in it and trust the honesty and fairness of our legal system. We came closer to losing that in 2021 than many of us realize, and it only survived because Trump and his cult followers, especially those in Congress, were defeated.  

However, now the traitor and his followers will be back in power — admittedly through a legal election — but we cannot afford to forget the past in a cowardly attempt to compromise our principles because it’s the easy and comfortable thing to do.  

We can be confident that the attempt to destroy our Constitution can and will happen again if we don’t fight the greatest enemy America has faced since World War II.  

Michael J. Gorman