Answering President Kennedy's Question

What I can do for my Country

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” With the 2024 election season in full swing, this quote from President John Kennedy’s 1961 Inaugural Address keeps popping into my head. He may have said it over sixty years ago, but it feels especially pertinent right now.

Another presidential quote I remember is from President Ronald Reagan’s 1987 address at the Brandenburg Gate in Germany: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Standing up to dictators is very much on my mind this election cycle, and Reagan’s strong, unequivocal demand of Gorbachev is a stand I admire and, I believe, is absolutely needed today.

The anti-authoritarian stand that Reagan clearly articulated is, surprisingly and alarmingly, quite absent from what his Grand Old Party has now morphed into. The Republican Party has become a party that seems ever more desirous of replacing democracy with an authoritarian Christian nationalism, much like the country of Hungary has done.

(US government work, US Navy)

Four years ago, Ron Reagan, son of President Reagan, said of his father, "He would be horrified by the Republican Party right now.” And that was in 2020. Over the past four years, it has become even more extreme. According to Brookings Institute scholar Jonathan Rauch, the Republican Party is no longer a “traditional political machine.” Thanks to Donald Trump, the Republican Party is now a “personal political machine.” It is now the Trump Party, the MAGA Party.

In 2016, Senator Marco Rubio (“Liddle Marco,” “weak like a baby”, Trump said of him) called Trump a “fraud,” lunatic,” and “con artist.” A few weeks ago, that same Marco Rubio said at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, “The only way to make America wealthy and safe and strong again is to make Donald J. Trump our president again.” As went Rubio has gone the Republican Party – J.D. Vance, Lindsay Graham, Mike Johnson, Kevin McCarthy, Ted Cruz, Vivek Ramaswamy and so many more. The few that haven’t fallen in line behind Trump – Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, to name a couple – are gone or on their way out.

Of the numerous ways GOP policy has changed, its attitude towards authoritarian leaders and anti-American dictators is most troubling. In 1982, President Reagan spoke of the Party’s commitment to “the common task of strengthening democracy throughout the world.” What happened? Trump happened.

Viktor Orban of Hungary, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un of North Korea – all are authoritarian leaders that Trump admires and embraces. Orban, who is responsible for Hungary’s radical decline of democracy over the last several years, was a featured speaker at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that was held in Texas. This past spring, CPAC even held its conference in Hungary. Orban is a strong Trump supporter, having just visited with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in July.

If you want a model for the kind of president Trump aspires to be in a second term, look no further than Viktor Orban. If you want a model for the kind of country the Republican Party envisions for the United States, look no further than Hungary. I hate to use this phrase, but it fits too damn well not to: President Reagan must be “rolling in his grave.”

What kind of country do I want to live in? The answer to this question is my guiding light as I cast my votes this year. Among the values and policies that are important to me, I first want to live in a healthy, functioning democracy where the political environment is driven, not by loyalty to an individual, but to coming together to find solutions to our problems and challenges.

Non-partisan organizations that rate the democratic health of the world’s nations rate the United States as a “flawed democracy” (Economist Intelligence Unit,) or a “deficient democracy” (Democracy Matrix). Our democracy is in trouble. Its biggest threat is Trump and what the Republican Party has become, the Trump MAGA Party. Their vision for our country, well laid out in Project 2025, will only serve to further weaken the democratic values on which our republic is built.

It is hard to imagine that progressive Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York and former Wyoming Republican Representative Elizabeth Cheney, a staunch conservative, would endorse the same presidential candidate. Their views on policy are miles apart. Yet that is the case in 2024 – they are both voting for Democrat Kamala Harris. There are many other Republicans and former Republicans who are voting for the Democratic ticket, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Why? Because policy differences are taking a back seat to the dire threat that the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and J.D. Vance poses to our nation. In 2024, preserving our democracy is what is on the ballot.

So I am applying Kennedy’s admonition to the upcoming 2024 election. I am asking myself what I can do for my country at this moment, this highly precarious moment in our nation’s history. My answer is quite simple – keep Donald Trump out of the White House. I am just a small voice, living in a small town in rural America, but I refuse to be silent. President Kennedy, I will do whatever I can do to prevent a second Trump presidency. It is as clear as clear can be – a Trump victory poses a grave threat to our country’s government and our way of life.

Giving presidential power back to Trump and his MAGA Party will also wreak havoc on so many other important issues, from climate change to workers’ rights to LGBTQ+ rights to public lands to the separation between church and state. The list goes on and on. Remember, it is no longer the Republican Party, it is the Trump MAGA Party. Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway, I am voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz for President and Vice-President. And in down-ballot races, I am voting to keep Congress out of the hands of the Republican Party.