In attempts to try and figure out how it was that there were enough voters in this country to ever elect Trump to the Presidency, even the first time, there were plenty of previous signs. When Newt Gingrich became the first Republican to be elected Speaker of the House in 40 years, that was a sign that things were about to change, and that the Heritage Foundation and the billionaires club were going to systematically engage in attempts to buy influence over the United States government piece by piece.

The realization that there were enough Americans who would vote against their own interests, and against politicians who were committed to making the American Republic work and for those politicians who were willing to take it apart, piece by piece did not come to me because of my background as a social studies teacher, or my knowledge of American history and government, or from reading and watching multiple news sources. I knew there was an element of subversion among the country's electorate because I observed it in church.

He [my Dad] was raised in church, the Disciples of Christ, but after college, and the Navy, he wasn't attending when he met and married my Mom. She was raised in a "half time" Methodist church. When I came along, they decided to be more regular, and joined a small, Southern Baptist church where they felt comfortable among other transplants from the south in the small Arizona town where they settled.

And that's where I saw, and heard, the kind of abberant politics and ideology that would eventually lead to explaining why there could be enough voters in America to turn against its historic principles, and its own democratic republic by electing a corrupt and incompetent destroyer like Trump. It was in the ideology being preached and taught in church.

The biggest enemy to democracy in America is the concentrated wealth we have allowed to accumulate in the hands of just a few people who now are using it to destroy the nation and get what they want. It promotes immorality so it stands against Christian values. It creates inequality so it is unconstitutional and unpatriotic. And we need to remind ourselves that if it can buy the Republican party, it can also buy the Democratic party, and apparently, it already has a few of those in its pocket. It's time for some real reform.