American democracy is in danger

More and more, the news of the day seems to indicate an ongoing corrosion of our public institutions. Judges are allowing vast abuses to play out, on the premise that they can be challenged later. The consequence is the massive destruction of federal agencies, degradation of safeguards against corruption, violations of the labor rights of hundreds of thousands of civil servants, and mafia-style coercion of private universities.

Today, we see the second attempt by Donald Trump to deploy the military in a U.S. city. In both cases, the move was unjustified by any facts on the ground and is seen by all as a clear attempt by Mr. Trump to exert unaccountable power, using the threat of military force, to deny the lawful administration of public institutions at the local or state levels. This would seem to be very clearly an overt rejection of the U.S. Constitution in its entirety, along with the Bill of Rights.

The five cities with the highest per-capital homicide rate in the United States are all in so-called "red states"—states Mr. Trump won and which are controlled by Republican administrations. The danger experienced in these cities is characteristic of places with laws that make acquiring firearms easy, while depleting funding for public services, including education, infrastructure, recreation, and policing and other emergency services.

Mr. Trump is not acting to counter that threat. Instead, he is attempting to use military force to occupy an American city. He is attempting to do what the British monarch did in the 1770s, when he wanted to negate the human rights of people living in what would later become the United States.

Mr. Trump is using lies and anti-immigrant hate to sow division. Many of his supporters, including those who sit in Congress and are sworn to uphold the Constitution, are consenting to put aside their conscience in service of that hate, those lies, and what appears to be an attempt to establish authoritarian rule in the United States.

No one can afford for this campaign against democracy to succeed. Even Mr. Trump would be far better off if all those enabling him would stop. He has no lawful authority to declare martial law—period. He has no right to occupy American cities, on any grounds. His allies have no lawful authority to replace elected officials from another party with allies so they can make laws that violate basic rights.

Each of these corrupt acts is a crime against American democracy which will live in infamy forever. All of us who love humanity, freedom, and democracy, must use our voices to say: No. America has no king; we the people will choose our government, and that government will serve us and the law, and no one else.