By Russell Pangborn 
Scientific American, a group that has traditionally remained neutral around presidential elections, recently broke a 175-year protocol and endorsed Joe Biden. These are unprecedented times and all supporters of a rational, secular society should take note of this cannon shot in defense of scientific inquiry and the benefits it provides to society.
What is different this time in the upcoming election to the south? One clear motivator for this prestigious organization’s decision is the 200,000-plus Americans dead from COVID-19, directly as a result of a leader ignoring the advise of medical experts, instead substituting his own quack theories as a solution. But there are other fundamental concerns.
In my own life there were times democracy was taking a beating, but that was always in a distant country. It was never in peril with our neighbour who always liked to characterize themselves as the bastion of democracy. As a young boy, I remember reading the story of tanks rolling in to Czechoslovakia to thwart the will of a people while delivering the Toronto Star door to door on my paper route. Lyndon B. Johnson was President of the U.S. and no one was talking about him planning to steal an election.
In 1989 as a professor at Seneca College, not only did I read about the Tiananmen Square protests; I met a few students who were there and were part of the protests. They told me how the tanks crushed the democratic yearnings of an entire nation. President George H. W. Bush publicly condemned the event. Again, no one was talking about him cheating in the upcoming election and denying the American people the ability to select their next government.
Today we are reading about how Vladimir Putin employs poison to kill or maim his political opponents as a warning to all that they should not challenge his sham democracy. The current president of the U.S. is silent on this and the Russian bounties on U.S. soldiers’ lives.
Many are speculating Trump will blatantly cheat in the imminent November election and not give up his power. Ex-generals, ex-presidents, professors, and others are gaming out scenarios in an attempt to thwart this. There is a distinct possibility this president will forcefully grab the keys to American tanks so he can compel the American people to accept his children as their future presidents. This regime is anti-science and anti-secular. It will continue to rationalize the overwhelming evidence of climate change science away by pointing to the low temperature on a cold day to enable policies that push us closer to an extinction event so some can continue to make profits.
This regime also brings with it an ominous threat to secular society. It is fueled by an anti-abortion religious coalition whose champion is Attorney General William Barr. He has transformed the position of chief lawyer for the federal government to one of chief enabler of a rogue president. Barr was recently asked how history will view him for his decisions and he replied that history is written by the winners.
This is the man who was recently called out by Catholic theologian C. Colt Anderson, after warning in a Notre Dame speech that militant secularists were waging a campaign to destroy the traditional moral order. As many are outraged over racism and the cheap value placed on black lives, this BLM denier made a contemptible comparison of a nationwide lockdown to combat the spread of the coronavirus as being similar to slavery’s intrusion on civil liberties.
There is more than one type of virus that attempts to cross borders and we need to keep this ideological one that ignores critical thinking and wants to dismantle secularism out of our country. Meanwhile let us hope enough of the American people listen to Scientific American’s endorsement. Only overwhelming numbers for the Trump alternative will protect the U.S. from the machinations of a potential dictator.