Does democracy survive in this country?

The bases of a democracy in a country that is multilingual, has a wide variety of religious beliefs, has a multiracial population, and has a broad range of political/cultural viewpoints creates in my mind a necessity for safeguards in the governing institutions.

What are those safeguards in my mind? One is voting that is available to every citizen in a fair and easily accessible way. Long line in cities, voting locations that are not realistic for some, restricting voting times and not using proven alternatives to in-person voting where possible is not supporting democracy, which we see in a lot of Republican-dominated states, including Wisconsin.

Republicans have locked in control with a minority in Wisconsin by gerrymandering, allowing the minority to hold a majority of elected legislative offices.

The second is allowing a major political party to use TV and social media to publish false reports, unproven accusations and gross distortion as facts. We have seen this for seven years in the Trump propaganda and broadcast by a sizable portion of the Republican Party, including our Republican senator and at least one of our Republican House representatives. The is not free speech — this is how democracies are destroyed.

Truth does matter. We have a good Constitution that is only good in practice as is the health of the democracy. Distortions, greed for power and wealth, and lies have destroyed governments before and can here.