A republic, if you can keep it
We must now decide if we are to keep our Republic or if, as Germany, Italy and Spain did in the late 1930's, we will let it slide away into the hands of an authoritarian and fascist regime.
If you are allowed to make the Constitution and the Rule of Law anything but obligatory, if you are able to circumvent the balance of powers and concentrate power in one branch of government, if you have access the personal information of nearly every American, if you are allowed to retaliate with impunity against anyone who disagrees with you, then you can pretty much do whatever you want -- you have become an authoritarian "King". You are also a fascist, in the same vein as Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco. And so are the people who support you.
In October of 2024, Donald Trump held a rally at Madison Square Garden, and it was there that the Trump campaign openly embraced comparisons to the Nazis. That was the same Madison Square Garden, which was the site of a rally by American Nazis in 1939, who also openly embraced fascist discussions about polluting our blood, and allowing a comparison of other Americans as an enemy within. No American should underestimate this
I'm a big fan of historian Heather Cox Richardson's "Letters from an American". She has a very profound talent for elucidation. In her February 24, 2025 newsletter, she highlighted a statement made by Angus King, a former multi-term governor of the State of Maine and current US Senator. That quote goes directly to the crux of the problem we are facing:
"In the Senate, on Thursday, February 20, Angus King (I-ME) also reached back to the framers of the Constitution when he warned—again—that permitting Trump to take over the power of Congress is “grossly unconstitutional.” Trump’s concept that he can alter laws by refusing to fund them, so-called impoundment, is “absolutely straight up unconstitutional,” King said, “and it’s illegal.”
“[T]he reason the framers designed our Constitution the way they did was that they were afraid of concentrated power,” King said. “They had just fought a brutal eight-year war with a king. They didn’t want a king. They wanted a constitutional republic, where power was divided between the Congress and the president and the courts, and we are collapsing that structure,” King said. “[T]he people cheering this on I fear, in a reasonably short period of time, are going to say where did this go? How did this happen? How did we make our president into a monarch? How did this happen? How it happened,” he said to his Senate colleagues, “is we gave it up! James Madison thought we would fight for our power, but no. Right now we’re just sitting back and watching it happen.”
“This is the most serious assault on our Constitution in the history of this country,” King said. “It's the most serious assault on the very structure of our Constitution, which is designed to protect our freedoms and liberty, in the history of this country. It is a constitutional crisis…. Many of my friends in this body say it will be hard, we don't want to buck the President, we'll let the courts take care of it…. [T]hat's a copout. It's our responsibility to protect the Constitution. That's what we swear to when we enter this body.”
“What's it going to take for us to wake up…I mean this entire body, to wake up to what's going on here? Is it going to be too late? Is it going to be when the President has secreted all this power and the Congress is an afterthought? What's it going to take?”
“[T]his a constitutional crisis, and we've got to respond to it. I'm just waiting for this whole body to stand up and say no, no, we don't do it this way. We don't do it this way. We do things constitutionally. [T]hat's what the framers intended. They didn't intend to have an efficient dictatorship, and that's what we're headed for…. We’ve got to wake up, protect this institution, but much more importantly protect the people of the United States of America.”
The U.S. Constitution was designed to create a system of checks and balances that would prevent any one branch of the federal government from becoming too powerful and ensure that the electorate held the fundamental power in government. In recent years, our government has trended away from the framers construct of "we the people" and towards government overreach and unlawful executive orders. But, more importantly, our government is, increasingly, being controlled by an elite class, and never as much so as what we are now seeing with the administration of Donald Trump.
In Federalist No. 39, James Madison wrote that: "[W]e may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; . . . It is SUFFICIENT for such a government that the persons administering it be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people; and that they hold their appointments by either of the tenures just specified. . . ." We have now deviated from the intention of our Founding Fathers to an extreme.
On September 17, 1787, the day the Constitution was signed, Elizabeth Willing Powel's posed this question to Benjamin Franklin: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?,
Franklin's response was: “A republic, if you can keep it.” Now, we must decide if we are to keep our Republic or, as Germany, Italy and Spain did in the late 1930's, let our unique form of government slide away into the hands of an authoritarian and fascist regime.
We must stand up and RESIST. The time has come. And we should welcome those conservatives who may have voted for president Trump and are just now beginning to realize the gravity of their monumental error. We can still save our democracy, but the margins are getting thinner with each passing day.
#RESIST #FASCISM #50501
Sources:
Hussein, F. (2025, February 18). Social Security head steps down over DOGE access of recipient information, AP sources say | AP News. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/social-security-elon-musk-doge-164c91f8477d5e7833af7f6de4bbde57
Nawaz, A., & Popat, S. (2024, October 29). How Trump’s rhetoric compares to historic fascist language. PBS News. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-trumps-rhetoric-compares-to-historic-fascist-language
Richardson, H. C. (2025, February 24). February 23, 2025. Letters from an American.
Last, R. (n.d.). When Fascism Comes To America, It Will Be Wrapped in the Flag and Carrying a Cross. https://open.substack.com/pub/robertlast/p/when-fascism-comes-to-america-it
We have a system that has relied on a modicum of integrity from those who have power. But the system has major weaknesses that make it vulnerable to someone like Trump and those who support him. We will not be safe until those weaknesses are fixed. They include:
1. A judiciary whose independence is not required by the Constitution.
2. Lifetime appointments to SCOTUS. (I would go further and - for balance - have a new member nominated every two years by the party that LOST the most recent election.)
3. Gerrymandering. It should be a crime. (Now, there is no penalty for trying it. The worst that can happen is that you don't get the advantage you sought.)
4. Contributions to election campaigns should be legal ONLY from those who are entitled to vote in an election, i.e. within a district for the House, within a state for the Senate, etc. If you don't have a vote, you should not be able to influence an election, for the same reason that foreigners aren't allowed to contribute to presidential campaigns.
5. Electoral College: abolish it.
6. Presidential pardons: abolish them.
Sadly, this is a long list. We are a very long way from having a bullet-proof system of government.