Democracy Under Siege

About the Book

Can anything bring a greater sense of awe than viewing a chain of mountains from afar? Observing a long line of craggy peaks spread across the horizon and rising upward into an azure skyline gives a special perspectives to what a mountain really is. Such sites provide memorable experiences that last a lifetime.. Hiking that same mountain chain provides another perspective to the mountains. The rough terrain, winding and hazardous paths, and sheer drop-off cliffs provide a totally different, if equally memorable perspective. There are dangers in walking in the midst of mountains. Mountains can be hazardous. So it is with politics. Democracy, too, is a beautiful thing. This nation embodies a near-perfect set of rules and guidelines devised by men that we call our founding fathers and embodied in a document we call a constitution. Our constitution, too, creates a sense of awe. Today, watching the daily machinations of politics; the, the process of voting, campaigning, maneuvering, the political intrigue and the oversized egos of so many of our politicians throughout the nation makes us wonder. Politics, too, has its craggy paths and steep cliffs that so many of us disdain. It, too has its precarious nature.. At no time since the civil war has the fractured nature of the nation been more obvious than in the current political scene. Democracy is under attack, in danger of being replaced by an autocratic form of government. The author of this book has lived through the presidency of 15 chief executives—that’s 84 years of presidency. Born in the mid-west into a Republican family of long-standing, McGill spent his early years cementing that early belief through family conversations and school classes listening to history and civic teachers. He developed the engrained belief that, somehow, the Republicans best served the needs of the American people. It was sometime during his college years that the author began the long shift from Republican to Democrat. McGill shares that transition even as he warns about the current political dangers threatening the future of the nation. There is an urgency to the book—a concern for the future the children of today. A recurring question in the book asks about the world the children and grandchild will inherit.

About the Author

In 1952 a youngster, Bobby Jim McGill, moved with his parents from a small town in Oklahoma to a hardscrabble farm in Missouri. Not long after the move, Bobby Jim’s uncle visited the family for a few days stay. At one point during the visit the uncle, put his arm around the young lad and rather forlornly told him he would never be the president of the United States. “Harry Truman is from Missouri,” the uncle stated, “and the people will never again elect a Missourian to be president.” The uncle was correct, of course. The young lad never became president. Nor did he ever, in the intervening years, run for any public office. But he did, for some instinctive reason, maintain an active interest in politics, occasionally writing letters to elected officials: the town mayor, a representative to congress, a U.S Senator and once, even to the President of the United States. President Eisenhower did not respond. Now after working at many levels in the field of education, Dr. McGill is retired and resides with his wife in the foothills of the beautiful Ozark Mountains of Missouri.