If you are campaigning for elected office and a member of a cult led by a supreme leader, whose every word is what you hang onto and who you fear to cross because you fear rejection or worse, you will not understand the opinion that follows.
You will not want to understand. You have given yourself, your mind, your thoughts, your heart and your identity to someone whose sole purpose is to control you on their behalf.
In so doing you will not understand that you will fail in your constitutional duties to uphold the law. You will fail to represent all the people in your district and fail to listen to them. There is no rational explanation in your mind to replace the blind fear that breaking loyalty to the supreme leader will bring down your campaign and that you will lose if you stand tall on your own two feet.
So don’t bother to read on. Don’t bother to reach out and talk with those whose life experiences are different from yours, who have different views from yours, who may offer you information of value, information that may even, forbid, open your mind and heart and, yes, enlighten you, so that, if and when you might be elected, you, in the purest form of democracy of our republic, will truly serve the needs of all your constituents, even those who did not vote for you.
But you will not understand this constitutional pledge because you fear letting go of your total loyalty to your supreme leader whose only measure of success is how tightly he can have his control over you.
You see? I was correct, wasn’t I? You still do not understand that, above blind loyalty to a man who you believe to be supremely powerful, there is a higher calling for you.
You do not understand that if you are able to break away from your cult, you will truly be free in your thinking and in your heart, to reach your own vision, as fearful to you as those qualities may seem to you as a member of this cult.
No, you would rather use the tools of authoritarian control, of threats and violence, and lies, as your supreme leader does.
You will not forego the comfort given to you by your fellow cultists on social media. You will not grow to enable yourself to truly reach out in freedom to talk with those who are different from you, who see things differently. You will serve only your cronies and fellow cultists. You will not do what the constitution requires of you as an elected official in America because you are caught in a trap that says being a member of a cult that is lead by a supreme leader is the only means to power and happiness.
There is another path. You can decline and do the greatest service to America. Besides standing tall and holding your head up on behalf of the United States Constitution, you will have offered fearless resistance against white supremacists and antisemitism, against those who would want the government to come between love and marriage, who would ban every woman’s right to abortion, who would deny the outcome of elections, who would resort to violence like the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the violent voices who called for the hanging of our vice president, the violence against our public officials and their families.
But, alas, when you are in a cult, it is highly unlikely that you will break through the fog of fear, lies and false loyalty. You will most likely fail to understand the greater good for humanity is calling for you to speak out against your supreme leader.
We must vote for democracy in a time when some candidates don’t have the wherewithal to do what’s necessary to preserve democracy. We must not allow cultists to ever come close to even dimming the United States of America’s shining light on the hill for democracy for all Americans, for the billions of our fellow human beings across the planet.
Americans must never again allow a cult of personality, no matter how slick and powerful, to destroy our representative form government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Witiak writes from Union Bridge.
