Democracies are weakened, face failure when citizens do not participate in them
Chris Becker
In 1920, a man named David C. Stephenson came up from Texas to Indiana and resurrected the old dogma that sprouted from the outcome of the Civil War. He blasted out the rhetoric of “America is for Americans” and claimed that immigrants were taking jobs from hardworking Americans, that Blacks should not be intermixed with whites (for the purity of the white race) and should be segregated from white society. That Catholics and Jews were taking over our banks, businesses and government and that white Anglo Saxon Christian Protestants were the pure race. He used white protestant churches to spread his doctrine of hate alongside the teachings of Christ.
He was a charlatan, a drunk, a rapist and a bigot, who cloaked himself in the Christian faith. He would become the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. Hundreds of thousands of people from across the United States and from all walks of life, farmers, businessmen, police officers, mayors, doctors, lawyers, congressmen and governors joined the Klan. In some parts of the country, whole towns, cities and states were controlled by the Klan.
In our current time, as COVID-19 was raging through our country, a conspiracy theory exploded across the U.S. that espoused the belief that there was a cabal of satanic, wealthy, elite, liberals that were controlling our government and drinking the blood of children and operating a global child sex trafficking ring, among other outlandish claims.
Followers of QAnon believe that Donald Trump when elected would root out this cabal and execute the members and restore true democracy. Followers of QAnon believe that they are the ones “in the know” and that everyone else is being brainwashed by the media. Millions of people across the U.S. bought into the QAnon conspiracy theory. It destroyed families, marriages and friendships of many of the people who believed in this outlandish conspiracy.
An article in the Nov. 13 Journal, “A warrior in battle to win America from satanic forces?” talks about a growing movement in the U.S. known as the New Apostolic Reformation – or NAR. It seems to mirror the 1920s KKK and the QAnon conspiracy theory, melding the two and rebranding it with a different name.
Once again cloaking itself in the Christian faith, but adding a few new groups to hate, i.e., LGBTQ, transgender and same-sex marriage, among others and claiming that Donald Trump will wage a spiritual war against these satanic groups.
This organization, like others in the past, would like to reshape the U.S. into a theocracy. A look at other nations that are ruled by a theocracy, such as Iran and Afghanistan or during the Dark Ages when the Catholic church ruled most of Europe, does not bode well for wanting to lean that direction. The separation of church and state was put in place for a reason.
Although the article did say that, “However, a large majority of Americans disagree that society should be remade based on religious theology,” it is worth noting, that in the past, these types of movements can gain momentum rapidly and have the possibility to reshape American democracy in ways that most Americans do not want to see.
Democracies are weakened and have the potential to fail when its citizens are complacent, uninformed and do not participate in the democratic process.
Chris Becker of Mancos is a retired high school teacher currently self-employed in residential construction.
