As we approach the upcoming election during one of America’s darkest hours, I am reminded of how Americans heeded the warning of President Harry S. Truman that rallied Americans to put an end to the era of McCarthyism in the early 1950s. An era when U.S. Sen. Joe McCarthy led a smear campaign claiming our government was filled with dangerous subversives.

No one defined this era better than Truman:

“It is the corruption of truth, the abandonment of the due process of law. It is the use of the big lie and the unfounded accusation against any citizen in the name of Americanism or security. It is the rise to power of the demagogue who lives on untruth; it is the spreading of fear and the destruction of faith in every level of society.”

Sound familiar to President Donald Trump’s claims of a “deep state” that has caused such deep divisions in our country?

Nearly 500 senior military officers, former cabinet secretaries and others, including many of our nation’s most distinguished generals and admirals, have issued a new warning in their open letter supporting former Vice President Joe Biden, saying he has “the character, principles, wisdom and leadership necessary to address a world on fire.”

“We are former public servants who have devoted our careers, and in many cases risked our lives, for the United States,” they wrote. “We are generals, admirals, senior noncommissioned officers, ambassadors and senior civilian national security leaders. We are Republicans and Democrats, and Independents. We love our country. Unfortunately, we also fear for it.”

Will we heed their warning and again rally on Nov. 3? Will we show our posterity that our generation preserved Abraham Lincoln’s promise “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth?”

WES HILLS,

Hillman