America has officially descended from Ronald Reagan’s “shining city upon the hill” to a banana republic on par with Cuba, Venezuela, or the former Soviet Union.

Elected officials from both parties have no interest in slowing America’s decline and most are cheering it on.

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Just this week, any semblance of fairness, justice, equal protection under the law, and a host of other principles which allowed America to thrive for almost 250 years were thrown out the window. America’s demise didn’t begin this week and can be traced to the days of FDR and then the liberal big-government explosion of the 1960s.

There were several checks and balances along the way, tapping on the brakes of America hurdling toward the abyss, specifically Presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. Other Republican presidents merely took the foot off the accelerator, allowing America to coast closer to calamity while Democrat presidents floored the gas pedal, speeding up the decline.

The Biden administration, not content with pedal to the metal acceleration, added a supercharger to the engine and filled the tank with high octane gasoline, turning a fast car into a race car. This past week illustrated the precarious state of America as a beacon of freedom and liberty.

Start with the indictment of former President Donald Trump. A Manhattan district attorney turned a misdemeanor, long past the statute of limitations, into a federal crime which his Manhattan D.A. predecessor, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, the former New York Attorney General, and the Federal Election Commission deemed to not be a crime and declined to prosecute.

Principal players including Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, in written statements, made clear that even the misdemeanor didn’t happen. Yet here we are with the Democrat party and its weaponized judicial system choosing to indict their political opponent who will be the likely Republican presidential candidate next year.

This does not and never has happened in America, the government in power using such might to destroy their political opponents. Yet here we are.

This same week, independent journalist Matt Taibbi, was visited by the IRS.  Taibbi had the gall to publish some of the Twitter Files, documenting collusion between U.S. federal 3-letter agencies including the FBI, CIA, DOJ, DHS, CDC, and FDA and big tech behemoths in order to control the free flow of news and information, censoring anyone they disagreed with, in flagrant violation of the First Amendment.

The same day Taibbi was testifying before Congress about his investigations, the IRS came to his New Jersey home, unannounced, to inform him of upcoming investigations into his taxes. Quite the coincidence of timing.

Remember Lois Lerner of the IRS harrassing conservative groups and leaking sensitive information to the media? Despite some limited huffing and puffing from Republicans in Congress, there has been no reckoning or accountability.

This is but one of many examples of a weaponized executive branch of government targeting political opponents well outside the intentions and words of our Founding Fathers.

When the IRS got away with targeting political opponents without consequence, the FBI said “hold my beer” and went after candidate and then President Trump, knowingly using Clinton campaign paid-for fabricated opposition research to obtain FISA warrants to spy on Trump and his associates and administration. They parlayed this investigation into a year’s long special counsel witch hunt into every aspect of Donald Trump’s life, without justification, hamstringing his presidency.

Yet after years of a microscopic examination into every aspect of Trump’s life, all they could come up with was some “supposed” hush money paid to a porn actress. Trump has to be the cleanest human being alive.

The same agencies turned a blind eye to the Biden Crime Family including Hunter’s laptop, applying a very selective form of justice. This led to two nonsensical impeachments, unprecedented, and for which once decent politicians, journalists, and other thought leaders either turned a blind eye or cheered along like a gaggle of clapping seals.

Then there was COVID, a bad flu virus weaponized by the government health authorities to shut down the economy and entire country, impose draconian mandates and restrictions based not on science but on political expediency, to kneecap the existing president and usher in new election rules making it easier to cheat and subvert the will of the voters.

Mail-in ballots, lack of chain of custody, ballot harvesting, no signature verification, ballot counting stopped in late evening only to see a dramatic reversal by morning in who was leading, lead to a presidential “selection” rather than an election, again with no reckoning or accountability.

When “we the people” exercised their First Amendment right to peacefully assemble, they were entrapped and unjustly prosecuted without due process or any sense of fairness, again to cripple the outgoing president and hamper any attempt for him to run for election in 2024.

When that failed, then came Trump’s indictment, based on fairy dust law that even liberal legal scholars have decried.

It’s not only Trump facing legal lawfare but also his associates. Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Mike Lindell’s cellphones were seized by the DOJ. Roger Stone and Peter Navarro were arrested. Trump’s Mar a Lago home was raided by the FBI who rifled through Melania’s underwear. The same FBI apparently has yet to look at Hunter Biden or Anthony Weiner’s laptops.

The last telling event this week was a transgender terrorist slaughtering 6 individuals, including 3 young children, at a Christian school. Predictably the Biden administration, singing in harmony with the corporate media, is worried about the backlash against the trans community, “celebrating their resilience” while basically ignoring the 6 dead human beings and their devastated families and friends. As always, they blame the gun, not the transgender shooter likely pumped full of hormones and mental health medications, who deliberately pulled the trigger.

In all of this, where are the Republicans? Or even a few principled Democrats if any exist? If a fraction of these travesties were visited on former President Obama, Democrats would be screeching like banshees, holding press conferences, circling the wagons with sharped fangs defending their party leader. Most Republicans remain silent. Hopefully Trump is taking names.

Our ruling class has made a conscious decision to spend money we don’t have, provoking needless wars, opening our borders, condoning and encouraging crime, destroying the economy along with the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans, all in an attempt to transform America into some multicultural, uber-woke hellhole, reminiscent of the Hunger Games.

So where does that leave America? In 2023, the formerly Judeo-Christian nation has walked away from her moral roots, acknowledging our God-given rights and privileges in favor of selfish and evil ideologies, destroying children, families, and the will of the American people.

We have a weaponized government where those in power make the rules to suit their whims and political needs, destroying all who stand in their way. Several hundred years ago our ancestors fought to rid themselves of a king and here we are with a ruling class filed with kings. America has fought wars against totalitarian regimes of Hitler and Stalin, yet ironically our government is emulating many of their dictatorial attributes.

I am sad for my children and grandchildren. They will be the first generation that will most likely have fewer opportunities and a less prosperous life than their parents had. They say empires last not more than 250 years and America’s 250-year anniversary is in 3 short years.

What will be left in 3 years? Will we be in World War 3 against Russia, China, and Iran, with a ruined economy and hyperinflation, living in a police state, ruled by tyrants willing to use whatever means necessary to stomp out any opposition or resistance? Where are American leaders, men and women of principle and conscience? Will it be left to mob rule or civil war to change course?

Welcome to the Banana Republic of America.

Brian C Joondeph, MD, is a physician and writer.

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