By Tim Deal

For the Salisbury Post

Every election is preceded by comments that it’s an important one because “America is at a crossroads.” Unfortunately, that is no longer true. Through a series of wrong turns where we’ve elected people because they look good and sound good on 5-second sound bites, America is past the crossroads, and lost.

Although there was minimal if any coverage by most media, Franklin Graham addressed a crowd of over 10,000 in Raleigh on Oct. 13 as the final stop on his “Decision America” tour, which included rallies in all 50 state capitals. Graham pointed out that many of the concerns we had during the Cold War, changes that communists would like to make to destroy America, have come to pass.

In the 1960s we were afraid that the communists would limit our freedom of religion, take prayer and Godly influence out of the public sphere, including government and schools, and we’ve allowed it to happen through a series of court decisions and ongoing threats of litigation.

The communists would allow only those who subscribed to a certain political ideology to do business, now being accomplished by including more and more protected classes in non-discrimination laws.

The communists would tell us what we can and can’t say, the objective of what we call “political correctness.” Those who wouldn’t accept the communists’ agenda would be counseled — that’s being done through the private sector, but we call it “sensitivity training.”

The communists would take away our guns so we can no longer defend ourselves from their tyrannical government, and we are just one appointment to the Supreme Court from that happening.

While we’re past the crossroads and headed in the wrong direction, those who say this is the most important election to date are correct. Many of the changes that have taken America down the wrong road have been accomplished through our own courts. Therefore, as distasteful as he sometimes is, Donald Trump is the only chance we have in this presidential election to prevent a Supreme Court that will continue our march down that road for the next generation and beyond.

Who knows — perhaps he will also upset the Washington political machine, so that term limits can be considered to prevent control of career politicians by those with the most money.

Tim Deal lives in Salisbury.