We're losing concept of 'loyal opposition'

After more than 100 years, the Republican Party has found its iconic leader, a man who rules by fiat and whim, not just to his likes and dislikes but in harmony with the political party that elected him.

With initial discord and disagreement among its ranks, after nearly a year and a half, it's coalesced around a long-sought strongman who reflects their policies and programs often denied by several former conservative administrations.

Evidence? Donald Trump has managed to receive more support from Republican constituents than any similar administrations in the past century. From its initial opposition to Social Security in the past 83 years, its refusal of voting rights in the 1960s, along with its similar opposition to Medicare and Medicaid, it's now gone to extremes by aligning itself with extreme cruelty and brutality of Trump in his treatment of natural indigents and desperate immigrants seeking asylum in this country!

It's ignored his support of foreign dictators, past and present, while dispensing vile hatred toward the former president, setting heretofore unseen precedence, attempting to erase his presence on the American landscape with his executive orders isolated from the ability of Congress to override them. No longer do we have political parties that represent the "loyal opposition." We now have an emergent, potentially irreversible, situation that now undermines this democracy as well as the Constitution that has faithfully served this nation for 229 years, potentially creating perpetual hostility, not just political opposition, between both political parties.

James D. Cook

Schaumburg