To the editor:

The power of the governed can never come back to the people once the governing body of authority has been allowed to take the path of total control.

In the United States of America, it used to be that no one was above the law. The President of the United States was not exempt. Sadly, this was changed with the recent Impeachment trial of President Donald John Trump which established the precedent of giving more power of the Executive Branch of our Republic by allowing a sitting president to take any action that will benefit him or herself, whether in a political or personal matter without penalty or Congressional oversight of any degree.

I don’t think this is what the framers of the Constitution envisioned.

The grand Republican Party of the past, which I sometimes supported, is gone. It should now be called the Authoritarian Party. Upon exiting the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was approached by a group of citizens asking what sort of government the delegates had created. His answer was: "A republic, if you can keep it."

I fear for my country, we have just lost it.

We as a nation, will no longer be able to hold those in power accountable to those whom they have power over. What happens to a free democracy when those in power have no fear of accountability? What happens to a free democracy when those in power call the press “an enemy of the people?"

That free democracy ceases to exist as such.

—Dan Barrett
Jasper