The Demise of American Democracy: Understanding the Crisis and Resisting the Threat, 2nd edition, follows a 2016 1st edition, which explained the crisis and what to do about it, from the Reagan administration to the beginning of the 2016 election campaign. Newt Gingrich's Contract With America in 1994 had extended the conservative attempt to de-democratize America. Nixon's abortive autocratic expansions of presidential powers in the early 1970s culminated in his firing of the Watergate Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox. Cox reflected on the debacle by posing the challenge: "Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people to decide." Today a rogue, Tea Party movement, presents us with a similar challenge after the takeover of the once moderate and representative Republican Party. That set the stage for the present crisis in which the government has been faced with its takeover by those who seek its democratic demise as a result of an Electoral College victory by a candidate who received a minority of votes. The election of President Trump and the policies and practices initiated by his administration have made more intense the movement to replace democracy with a conservative autocracy. Americans are now faced with a fundamental attack on the pursuit of justice and the rule of law. A majority has chosen to resist the threat, and to look forward to the restoration of what is being taken away. The story reads like a novel and sounds like a legal brief, summarizing and offering the facts of the attempted demise and alternatives to a dystopian darkness. An eternal light illuminates the way to renew our quest for a more perfect union.
About the Author: Dr. Bill Durland is a retired professor of Philosophy, History and Government and a civil rights attorney, playwright, educator and activist. He holds a B.A. from Bucknell University, M.A. from the University of Notre Dame, J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a Ph.D. from the Union Graduate School, formerly at Antioch College. He is a member of the Bars of the United States Supreme Court and several states and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Dr. Durland is the recipient of the State of Colorado's 1999 Martin Luther King, Jr. Humanitarian Award and Bucknell University's Service to Humanity Award. He served as an elected legislative representative in the Virginia House of Delegates. He is a legal specialist in International and Constitutional law and legal counsel on five cases reaching the Supreme Court of the United States.