What has just happened?

For eight years, Donald J. Trump has raised havoc on American democracy and Donald J. Trump and his GOP have won the presidential election through treacherous acts of power violating all the elements of truth and religion.

“I will protect your right and you will protect mine” demands the choice of liberty and American freedom. The freedom of religion. The freedom of the press. The freedom of control over your own health, life, and your own bodies. The freedom of who you are and what you want to be. All of the freedoms that we have enjoyed by living together in the United States of America are now going to be removed!

Over the past eight years, following a list of unnecessary and unreasonable governmental and legal concessions, Donald J. Trump and his GOP have replaced the three functions of our government with a single, stifling administration of lost American human rights and total suppression. One man above the law in absolute control of a divided nation. No freedom. No religion. No future.

It doesn’t matter who or what you are: rich or poor, Republican or Democrat, White or Black, man or woman, Christian or non-Christian, military or non-military, legal or illegal, straight or gay — we’ve all been played. One-side-against-the-other until we all came together and lost our nation.

LANCE A. HEITZ,

Presque Isle