D-Day, and pride in America as democracy’s defender | Editorial

A special poignancy surrounded the recent ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, for the battle that foretold Nazi Germany’s defeat.

It was likely the last such decennial celebration that the surviving heroes of Operation Overlord — indeed of any Allied campaign — would be able to attend.

The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that only 1,000 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II will still be alive for the next one in 2034. By then, all of them would be well over 100. One veteran died on his way to Normandy this month.

The Greatest Generation is almost gone. With living memory on the verge of extinction, there’s reason to fear history’s diminishing influence on the multitudes, especially in the U.S., who may become indifferent to the freedom that they owe to the many heroes of D-Day.

A wavering world

Is the free world wavering in its devotion to the principles of liberty and democracy that hung in the balance on D-Day? Might this be the last time anybody still cared?

The troops who parachuted from the sky and stormed beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Gold and Sword were understandably more concerned with surviving than with what history would say of them — and the battle that changed history.

On June 5, 1944, Hitler’s regime ruled Europe with an iron fist. After June 6, German Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt bluntly advised the Nazi general staff: “Make peace, you fools.”

The consequences of failure that day would have been unthinkable.

So are the consequences of failing to defend democracy and decency from the forces conspiring against them now.

A new evil empire

The United States that saved the free world in World War II is in danger of descending into despotism. Donald Trump intends to rule with his own iron fist if he returns to the office he disgraced when he whipped up a violent insurrection that he hoped would keep him there, despite losing an election.

Trump has already convinced a majority in his party that neither our free elections nor our courts are to be trusted. He cultivates contempt for democracy itself. It’s how every dictator comes to power or clings to it.

To build himself up, Trump tears America down. He talks so furiously about seeking retribution on opponents that even some Republicans in Congress say they’re worried. But they’re not worried enough to call him out for the thug that he is and to renounce their allegiance to him.

He’s the most openly racist politician to have led any Western government since World War II. He fawns over other right-wing authoritarians, especially Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Hungary’s Victor Orbán.

Threats against NATO

Nothing would disparage the future of democracy worldwide more than for us to elect a president who threatens to destroy NATO, the great international system we and our allies built to defend democracy and to avert World War III.

The D-Day ceremonies had hardly ended when European voters gave an enormous boost to far-right political parties. The chilling message from those returns was enough to upset the domestic politics of France and Germany, the two pillars of the European Union.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron was shocked into dissolving his parliament and calling a snap election. Whatever the outcome, he has two years in his term. But a clear victory for the far-right National Rally could cripple Macron and embolden neo-fascism not only in Europe, but in the U.S.

In 1838, a young prairie politician named Abraham Lincoln told an audience that America, insulated by two great oceans, had nothing to fear from foreign enemies and was in danger only from itself.

The defense is simple, he said: “Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others.”

Even then, political passions were tearing America apart. It led to a great Civil War and to the decisive battle at Gettysburg, where Lincoln declared that the living would best honor the dead by ensuring that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Democracies are fragile. They can be destroyed by ballots as well as by bullets.

Gettysburg and Operation Overlord repelled the bullets. The ballots are up to us.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.