Our Future May Very Well Be Decided in This Election –

A National Park Service Ranger leading a program on the Declaration of Independence inside the actual room and building where it was signed at Independence Hall: Glynn Wilson

The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – While standing in line to enter the hallowed grounds of Independence Square and Independence Hall, I heard a family speaking French behind me. We struck up a conversation in English, and I thanked the French for that country’s key role in helping to establish American independence from Britain and a democratic republic in the United States. Without the French Navy and the money to pay troops from Spain, we might all still be subjects in a British Monarchy.

About a third of the people here then and now might be fine with that, but the world would have become a different place with less individual and collective freedom.

A portrait of Ben Franklin by French painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze in the Independence Square Museum in Philadelphia, Pa.: Glynn Wilson

By now you know the famous true story of what Dr. Benjamin Franklin said at the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 as he left Independence Hall on the final day of the deliberations of the Continental Congress to head over to City Tavern for a cool ale.

“Well, Doctor, what have we got?” a woman asked. “A Republic or a Monarchy?”

“A Republic,” Franklin replied. “If you can keep it.”

We seem to be having particular difficulties keeping it these days. But we are not just teetering on the brink of bringing back Monarchy, with all the trappings of royal families and religious church leaders all involved with our politics. The followers of the likes of former judge Roy Moore in Alabama would take us back far enough if they could muster a majority with so many people not voting.

An Amish family in Sunday dress in horse and buggy: Glynn Wilson

I’m left wondering what the Amish people of Pennsylvania Dutch Country favor in their politics after passing through their beautiful, rich farmland and seeing them living in an old way, still driving horse drawn carriages up and down Highway 10 on the way back from the French Creek State Park Campground.

Some beautiful corn in Amish country Pennsylvania: Glynn Wilson

White nationalist and Neo-Nazi Steve Bannon and his ilk are advising now President Donald Trump to steer us in an even worse direction, a direction fully supported by many members of the town in Ulysses, Pennsylvania, who are hosting the World Aryan Congress attended by a rag tag gathering of neo-Nazis, skinheads and Ku Klux Klan, according to the Washington Post Sunday edition.

This is all taking place in Potter County, a staunchly Republican rural area that has voted only once for a Democratic president, in 1888. Trump received 80 percent of the vote in 2016.

What is it going to take to keep enough people turning out to vote to keep a democratic republic as we face this never ending existential crisis?

Dedicated American journalists can keep cranking out real news for those who are paying attention, although studies show that sensational fake news travels further and faster every time, and not the kind of fake news attacked by Trump and his Republican acolytes. They are the one’s pushing alt-facts to win elections. Clearly they have one third of the people following along in their wake, just like John Adams said so many years ago.

If only enough people would come to see places like Independence Hall and Valley Forge and listen to a National Park Service Ranger conduct a program full of real historical facts. The stories are mainstream and promote the popular myths of American history. But at least they are not made up fake nonsense like the stuff Bannon and his ilk push in their ill-informed versions of events.

For most intellectuals, liberals, Democrats and even most independent voters, how Trump continues to get away with pushing this false version of reality is an incredible mystery. How can so many people be fooled by what Trump posts on Twitter and says in these crazy speeches he makes out in the hinterlands?

While I was touring Valley Forge and boning up on how George Washington turned the Continental Army into a professional fighting force capable of taking on the British Red Coats, Trump was less than two hours north making another zany appearance in Wilkes-Barre Township.

Trump defended his treasonous meeting with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, he kept up the rhetoric about building his impractical wall along the Mexican border, threatening to shut the government down again if he doesn’t get what he wants. He continued to call the serious investigation into Russian meddling in our elections a “Russian hoax” and a “witch hunt,” even as his own national security team stood in the White House and admitted and criticized the Russian attack on American democracy.

This should not and cannot be allowed to stand, unless a majority of the public are really ready to give up this democratic republic and to submit to an autocratic, tin-pot dictator like Trump.

Like Thomas Paine and William Penn and many others, I can only write the message and hope enough people get it and share it. I suppose if it came right down to it, I could print out a 3D AK-47 and march from Valley Forge to Washington and demand the protection of democracy. The Democrats can’t seem to inspire enough people to march to Washington and surround the White House and Congress to demand that Trump be stopped. I guess our only hope at this point is to pray enough of them get a photo ID and show up at the polls November 6.

Like Congressman John Lewis said last year when urging people to vote for Doug Jones in the Senate race against Roy Moore, “We’ve got to go out and get people to vote like they’ve never voted before.”

Inside Independence Hall, the actual room and building where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the U.S. Constitution debated and passed: Glynn Wilson

A statue of George Washington outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pa.: Glynn Wilson

The west entrance to Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pa.: Glynn Wilson

Authentic citizens in period attire hold court outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pa.: Glynn Wilson

A depiction of the signing of the Declaration of Independence outside the Museum of the American Revolution in downtown Philadelphia, Pa.: Glynn Wilson

A statue dedicated to those who took the risk of signing the Declaration of Independence when it would have been considered treason by the Crown: Glynn Wilson

A depiction of Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River outside the Museum of the American Revolution in downtown Philadelphia, Pa.: Glynn Wilson