On a bright Thursday morning the Rev. John Skillings paid us a call at the Register.
His mood, however, did not match the weather.
“We need to take President Trump at his word,” he said, referring to the president’s recent threat to ignore election results if they did not weigh in his favor.
The Reverend’s concerns were twofold: For the president to say he doesn’t trust the U.S. election system undermines a very tenet of our democracy; and his refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose the election is foreboding of further turmoil.
On a personal level, I hesitate to give the issue much oxygen because this president relishes headlines, and the more outlandish the better.
But as a citizen, I also regard it as a civic duty to raise a warning flag when democracy is threatened.
JUST HOURS before the Rev. Skillings came to the Register, I had watched a news clip of the turmoil in Belarus due to its president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, refusing to stand down despite overwhelming evidence that he had lost the Aug. 9 election.
For seven weeks and counting, hundreds of thousands of Belarusians have taken to the streets protesting Lukashenko’s reign. 
It has not been peaceful. Government troops have arrested more than 10,000 with hundreds beaten, tortured and shot.
On Wednesday, Lukashenko held a private inauguration ceremony.
In 1990, Belarus declared its independence from the Soviet Union.
One person, with the right cronies, has turned a fledgling democracy into a dictatorship.
I fear to venture where the violence there will eventually lead.
On Thursday, President Trump called our system of voting by mail “a scam,” saying it was fraught with abuse by people illegally filling out ballots.
Election officials across the country say that’s not the case.
