What is leadership? In a crisis, it is not doing for others what they must do, but understanding what needs doing, inspiring others to follow. At the federal, state, local, and family levels, “Progressives” are on the march. We must be leaders.
Nationally, America is – we all know it– now split between two factions – exactly what our Founders feared might wreck the Republic. One faction is faithful to timeless truths, our Bill of Rights, personal responsibility, self-help, individual liberties, limited government, reason, and respect for faith.
The other faction – with indifference to the Bill of Rights, personal responsibility, individual liberties, reason, and faith – wants concentrated power, “group rights,” political violence, and insidiously pushes what amounts to communism.
To those who question the word “communism,” just pause – if you seek truth. Read the Communist Manifesto, how Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, and Mao advocated controlling people as sheep, setting them against each other using “class warfare” (ignoring the American Dream and upward mobility, classlessness).
The “New Democrats” now protest (often violently) everything, are antagonistic to freedoms of speech, worship, gun ownership, non-political judiciary, Bill of Rights. They push more government, regulation, taxes, free stuff (checks to reparations), and less personal responsibility.
This is dangerous to a republic whose people are ignorant of their history, sleepy, increasingly dependent, trusting the unworthy, thinking “it cannot happen here.” Alert: It is happening here. Freedoms are being stolen, replaced by the government.
In historical perspective, we are losing what our forefathers fought and died for: personal independence, freedom from government, understanding that republics die without a moral compass, freedom, self-reliance, self-help, reason, and faith.
Edmund Burke, the Englishman who loved America, said: “All it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.” We cannot be those people, or evil wins.
Bluntly, “Progressives” have hijacked the traditional “Democrat” party – from Maine to California. This is both shocking and disappointing, not just for others, but for traditional Democrats. The objective is to “transform” us, like the communist “fellow travelers” in the 1930s, Black Panthers, Weather Underground, and violent groups in the 1960s, leftists in Congress, BLM, ANTIFA, all “transformational.”
The kicker? They are doing it right under our noses. They are doing it nationally, at the state level, violating Supreme Court precedents, everything from election and tax law to Title IX. They are doing it locally with trained activists taking over school boards, conditioning children to reject reason, faith, and hard learning, instead to accept helplessness, dependence, Government for God, turning boys into girls.
They boldly assault the family, parents’ rights, the idea that we are individuals with individual rights, speech, faith, self-protection, freedom from government overreach, not a flock of sheep with group rights or none, as government chooses.
This is where leadership is needed. We must stand up, all of us, remember our destiny is about “We, the People,” not corrupt, power-hungry, arrogant officials.
Many of us knew World War II veterans, saw their leadership at all levels, national, state, local, and family. Many lived in the time of Ronald Reagan, a freedom fighter.
Reagan reminded us what leadership – at any level – looks like. “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things; he is the one that gets people to do great things.” That is what Reagan did, what we all should now, wake people up to the danger, and defend our freedoms. We must. That is leadership.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor. BobbyforMaine.com
