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American elector,
We write from all over the world, united in the same concern and prayer.
We write as we call for help, not for us alone, but for you too. Because your country is not just your country. It has become, whether you like it or not, the spine of our fragile order, The light of which illuminates other democracies and whose shadows, when they spread out, obscure the entire planet.
You are a citizen of a nation whose decisions resonate everywhere: in chanceries, in financial markets, in the consciences of peoples.
You are a citizen of a patriarch who can never be content to live for himself alone, because his weight leads everyone else. If he stumbles, we all fall. If he sinks into confusion, it is the whole world that swings with him.
That's why your voice, your ballot paper, is worth a thousand times more than you think. That's why we, strangers to your soil but linked to your destiny, turn to you.
History has already written this scenario that we fear.
In the 1930s, Germany, one of the most educated, brightest, most modern nations of its time, saw a monster born. He did not come to power by arms, but by voting. It did not destroy democracy with a thunderbolt, but by a thousand small cuts, every day deeper.
The Republic of Weimar believed in his strong institutions. She believed that the absurd would remain marginal, that freedom would remain rhetorical. And yet, the absurd became law, the outburst became doctrine, hatred became political.
Hitler was able to turn fear into a motor, resentment into a program, resentment into an identity. He promised to restore the lost greatness, to humiliate those whom he designated as enemies from within, to sweep the elites accused of treason.
His opponents underestimated it. His people believed in his delusions to make Germany the master of the world. He could've thrown them « Make Germany Great Again« .
And the whole world paid the price for this illusion.
An American writer, this account is not a distant parable. We recognize the echoes in your debates, in your fractures, in the voice of a man who occupies your White House as a monarch on his throne. He embodies, with unfailing brutality, what history has already taught us: Democracy does not always die by sudden collapse, it is lost by progressive consent.
We saw your Capitol invaded by a blank crowd, refusing to recognize the verdict of the ballot box. We have heard elected officials speak of fraud without proof, repeating lies a thousand times until we turn them into an alternative truth in the minds of millions.
We have observed your country fractured by rhetoric that opposes on « real Americans » to others, as if a passport or skin colour could prioritize citizenship.
We saw the decrees prohibiting the entry of your territory to whole families because they came from countries considered undesirable.
We saw the separation of children and parents on your southern border, as if distress could be a political weapon.
We saw judges appointed to serve an ideology and not the general interest.
We saw science denied, the press insulted, the truth replaced by slogans.
And now we see the next step: a revengeful return, more methodical, more ruthless, without adults in the room to reason the leader blinded by his power and the allegiances of his flattering entourage.
Its supporters are placed in strategic positions, in the states where electoral shifts are played. They shape laws to restrict access to the vote, target certain communities, prepare to challenge future results.
They sow in the minds that democracy is rigged, so that tomorrow, if the people reject them, they can say: « This people no longer exist, it was made. »
You have to understand this: the stake is not just your daily life, your tax, your job, your internal debates. The stakes are vital for all of us.
For if American democracy falls, the fragile democracies that look at you will collapse with it.
Already, all over Europe, populist parties are inspired by what is happening in your country. They challenge the elections, dream of deporting minorities, reject the idea of a free press.
In Europe, Asia, Latin America, leaders brandish his example to justify their own drifts. « Even America does. »They say. And if America does, then no one can resist them.
America, whether she likes it or not, is a matrix. It is this mirror in which the world reads the future. If this mirror breaks, it is not only your country that bleeds: it is all humanity that loses part of its trust in freedom.
We know that your country is going through deep tensions: progressive against conservative, urban versus rural, white who dream of supremacy against a diverse America that just wants to exist.
But that's precisely because Your country is now irreversibly multicultural that he must find the way of living together, not of retreat.
Hate will not restore greatness: it will only consume your soil, and by ricochet ours.
American elector, you have two major deadlines ahead of you: mid-term elections and, in three years, the President. Don't think this fight can wait three years. It starts right now.
Even if this mandate were to be the last for the current occupant, do not believe that the danger will come with him. In its shadow already stand younger suitors, more ideologists, more methodical. They observe, learn from his mistakes, structure themselves behind the scenes and wait for their time.
Their ambition is not only to reproduce what it has begun, but to deepen it, to make irreversible the slow erosion of democratic institutions..
The risk is therefore not temporary: it is a long-term battle where every election lost or won traces the future of American democracy. — And, with it, the whole world.
Every seat, every vote, every participation is another barrier against the rising authoritarian tide.
If you think others will vote in your place, if you think that democracy will defend itself, then you will let the enemies of freedom move forward without resistance.
Democracy does not die in a burst of bombs, it dies in the silence of those who abstain.
We're not naive. We know that some of your fellow citizens are already determined, blinded by anger or fear. But history is never written in advance. It decides in those moments when a people chooses to say « No ».
Your ballot may be that « No ».
No hate. No lie. No to collapse.
U.S. Elector, understand: you won't be alone in the sun. Behind you, invisible, billions of human beings will hold their breath. What you will do with your democracy will resonate in their lives, in their future, in the safety of their children. When you check a box, you will do so in the name of history, in the name of freedom, in the name of peace.
Go vote. Go vote massively. Go vote like a sacred ritual. Let your gesture be clear, unquestionable, irrefutable. For those who threaten your democracy are preparing to reject any unfavorable verdict. The only bulwark is such a strong mobilization that nothing can erase.
American president, we're not asking you the impossible. We're just asking you to do what only you can do.
We have no weapons, no votes, no votes in your country. We only have this letter, only this petition. Only you have the key. Only you can prevent the world from falling into chaos.
Then listen to this prayer.
Save us. Run. Save the world.
With all the gravity of a universal call,
Progressive and intellectuals from all over the world.
