We are a resilient nation. We have weathered terrible things — wars, slavery, economic crises, pandemics, natural disasters, terrorist attacks. We even survived a brutal and divisive civil war.
Our nation’s history began with a people who so believed in the ideals of liberty and justice for all that we were willing to sacrifice our lives in our fight against tyranny. We fought hard for our independence, for a constitution that would protect our civil liberties, and for a form of government that derived its authority from the consent of the governed and prevented any one of the three co-equal branches of that government from gaining ascendance through the separation of powers and a brilliant system of checks and balances.
It is our collective allegiance to our foundational ideals, documents and institutions that has saved us over and over again as we’ve encountered challenges. As Americans, we haven’t always agreed on philosophies, policies or approaches. In fact, our disagreements have been profound at times. But one of our great strengths has always been that, as a pluralistic society, we value and protect a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives, religions and beliefs. Pluralism is a key component of any healthy democracy. In Federalist 10, James Madison argues that pluralism is essential to avoiding tyranny since the various groups in a pluralistic society must, by necessity, negotiate and compromise to arrive at solutions that protect the rights of all, including minorities.
And, no matter our political disagreements, no matter who was president, no matter which political party held a majority in the House or the Senate, we could rely on the fact that, though the pendulum might swing to the right or to the left in any given election cycle, we would be okay because of the safeguards provided by our inspired Constitution — term limits, the separation of powers, checks and balances, the principle of the rule of law, and so forth.
These safeguards are vital. As George Washington warned in his farewell address to the nation:
“The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern ... To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them.” (emphasis added)
And Madison wrote in Federalist 47: “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
So, what happens when we have an executive who refuses to honor the critical safeguards enshrined in the Constitution? And a Congress that fails to provide the checks required by the Constitution? What happens when a president defies court orders and judicial rulings?
Pundits are reluctant to label the moment we find ourselves in a constitutional crisis, and I understand why. But when a president shows open disdain for the rule of law, due process, and the separation of powers, that surely constitutes a five-alarm emergency, if not a full-blown crisis. We must all wake up to the gravity of the moment.
A good friend of mine, a tried-and-true conservative, said to me the other day, “My whole life I’ve heard that the time will come when the Constitution will hang by a thread. I always thought it would be the liberals that brought us to that point. Never in a million years did I think it would be a Republican president.”
But here we are. The question now is: what are we going to do? The one thing we absolutely cannot do is nothing. We have to act. If we value our Constitution and our form of government at all, we must act.
We must call or write to our elected representatives in the House and the Senate every single day. We must remind them that they work for us and demand that they fulfil their constitutional duty to provide checks on executive overreach. Contacting our representatives is foundational. It is necessary, but it is not sufficient. We must do more.
We must make our voices heard in other ways, too. We can participate in peaceful protests, write op-eds and letters to the editor, join organizations dedicated to bridging divides and upholding the Constitution. We can educate ourselves, develop good media literacy and make sure we support credible news sources and share only information that we’ve carefully vetted. We can get involved in local politics, support humanitarian organizations, and reach out and serve our neighbors. We must be creative and courageous. And we must do whatever we can to help our friends, family members, coworkers and acquaintances see what is at stake so that they, too, can act.
Because what is at stake is our very republic.