<\/p>\n
John W. Whitehead<\/p>\n
NYT: \u201cDo you see any checks on your power on the world stage? Is there anything that could stop you if you wanted to?\u201d<\/p>\n
President Trump: \u201cYeah, there is one thing.\u00a0My own morality. My own mind. It\u2019s the only thing that can stop me<\/a>, and that\u2019s very good.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In January 1776,\u00a0Thomas Paine published\u00a0Common Sense<\/em><\/a>, a pamphlet that gave voice to the discontent of a nation struggling to free itself from a tyrannical ruler who believed power flowed from his own will rather than the consent of the governed.<\/p>\n
Paine\u2019s warning was not theoretical.<\/p>\n
Two hundred and fifty years later, we find ourselves confronting the same dilemma\u2014this time from inside the White House: can a people remain free if they place their faith in the virtue (or vice) of one man?<\/p>\n
When asked by the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0what might restrain his power grabs,\u00a0Donald Trump did not point to the Constitution, the courts, Congress, or the rule of law<\/a>\u2014as his oath of office and our constitutional republic require. He pointed to himself.<\/p>\n
According to Trump, the only thing standing between America and unchecked power is\u00a0his own morality<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Now America\u2019s founders believed in faith and morality. As John Adams warned in 1798, \u201cAvarice, Ambition and Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net.\u00a0Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People.<\/a>\u00a0It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adams was not advocating for a theocracy. Rather, he was emphasizing that a government of liars, thugs, and thieves will not be bound by constitutional limits. It will treat them as inconveniences.<\/p>\n
A constitutional government survives only when both the people and their leaders are willing to be bound by it.<\/p>\n
If our freedoms depend on Donald Trump\u2019s self-proclaimed morality, we are in dangerous territory.<\/p>\n
Over the course of his nearly 80 years, Trump has been a\u00a0serial adulterer<\/a>,\u00a0philanderer<\/a>,\u00a0liar<\/a>, and convicted\u00a0felon<\/a>. He has cheated, stolen, lied, plundered, pillaged, and\u00a0enriched himself at the expense of others<\/a>. He is\u00a0vengeful, petty, unforgiving<\/a>, foul-mouthed, and crass. His associates include felons, rapists, pedophiles, drug traffickers,\u00a0sex traffickers<\/a>, and thieves. He disrespects the law, disregards human life, is\u00a0ignorant of the Bible<\/a>,\u00a0illiterate about the Constitution<\/a>,\u00a0takes pleasure in others\u2019 pain<\/a>\u00a0and misfortune, and is utterly\u00a0lacking in mercy, forgiveness<\/a>, or compassion.<\/p>\n
Christian nationalists<\/a>\u00a0have tried to whitewash Trump\u2019s behavior by wrapping religion in the national flag and urging Americans to submit to authoritarianism\u2014an appeal that flies in the face of everything the founders risked their lives to establish.<\/p>\n
That whitewashing effort matters, because it asks Americans to abandon the very safeguards the Founders put in place to protect them from men like Trump.<\/p>\n
Trump speaks in a language of kings, strongmen, and would-be emperors advocating for personal rule over constitutional government. America\u2019s founders rejected that logic, revolted against tyranny, and built for themselves a system of constitutional restraints\u2014checks and balances, divided authority through a separation of powers, and an informed, vigilant populace.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf men were angels, no government would be necessary<\/a>,\u201d James Madison argued in Federalist 51. Because men are not angels and because power corrupts, Thomas Jefferson concluded: \u201cIn questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but\u00a0bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of their hard work is being undone. Not by accident, and not overnight.<\/p>\n
The erosion follows a familiar pattern to any who have studied the rise of authoritarian regimes.<\/p>\n
Trump and his army of enablers and enforcers may have co-opted the language of patriotism, but they are channeling the tactics of despots.<\/p>\n
This is not about left versus right, or even about whether Trump is a savior or a villain. It is about the danger of concentrating unchecked power in any one individual, regardless of party or personality.<\/p>\n
This should be a flashing red warning sign for any who truly care about freedom, regardless of partisan politics.<\/p>\n
The ends do not justify the means.<\/p>\n
Power that can be used \u201cfor the right reasons\u201d today will be used for the wrong reasons tomorrow.<\/p>\n
History shows that once the machinery of oppression is built\u2014surveillance systems, militarized enforcement, emergency authorities\u2014it does not care who operates the controls.\u00a0The only question is who will be targeted next.<\/em><\/p>\n
All presidents in recent years have contributed to the rise of the American police state with executive overreach, standing armies, militarized policing, war without consent, mass surveillance, and concentrated power.<\/p>\n
But Trump 2.0 has done more to dismantle the nation\u2019s constitutional guardrails than at any other time in history.<\/p>\n
Rather than adhering to the script provided by America\u2019s founders, it\u2019s as if the Trump administration took the grievances leveled against King George III in the Declaration of Independence and adopted them as a governing playbook.<\/p>\n
These are not hypotheticals or worst-case projections.<\/p>\n
They are unfolding now through emergency declarations, warrantless raids, speech-based detentions, unaccountable surveillance, and military actions launched without consent or constitutional authority.<\/p>\n
It is the same sequence every despot follows.<\/p>\n
First, power is centralized.<\/p>\n
\n
- Trump has ruled by executive decree rather than law, sidelining Congress through emergency declarations and unilateral orders.<\/li>\n
- He has obstructed laws necessary for the public good, refusing to enforce statutes that limit his authority.<\/li>\n
- He has conditioned governance on loyalty, withholding protection, relief, or aid from those who oppose him.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Next, accountability is dismantled.<\/p>\n
\n
- Trump has obstructed the administration of justice, interfering with investigations and shielding allies from prosecution.<\/li>\n
- He has politicized the judiciary, rewarding loyalty over independence and attacking courts that resist him.<\/li>\n
- He has undermined due process, expanding detention, administrative punishment, and coercive enforcement.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Once law no longer restrains power, force takes its place.<\/p>\n
\n
- Trump has deployed militarized federal agents among the civilian population without meaningful oversight.<\/li>\n
- He has blurred the line between civilian authority and military power, treating force as governance.<\/li>\n
- He has protected agents from accountability, excusing abuse, violence, and killing by law enforcement.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
If this is how Trump intends to celebrate the country\u2019s 250th<\/sup>\u00a0birthday, by reenacting the abuses that drove Americans to revolt in 1776, someone might need to clue him in to the fact that it ends with Americans rejecting \u201cabsolute tyranny.\u201d<\/p>\n
With every passing day, the American police state with Trump at its helm gets more unhinged.<\/p>\n
Once force replaces law at home, it is only a matter of time before it is unleashed abroad.<\/p>\n
With Trump\u2019s blessing, the military carried out\u00a0strikes on Nigeria on Christmas Day<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Without congressional authorization, without constitutional authority, and without any grounding in international law, Trump directed U.S. forces to invade a foreign country, abduct its president and his wife\u2014and then Trump\u00a0declared himself the new head of Venezuela<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Consumed with visions of global conquest and military expansion, Trump has treated sovereignty as negotiable and international law as an inconvenience. He has threatened, coerced, or destabilized nations including Venezuela, Greenland, Cuba, Nigeria, Iran, and others\u2014not through diplomacy or lawful process, but through dominance, spectacle, and unilateral force.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s push to boost the military budget to $1.5 trillion speaks less to national defense than to imperial ambition.<\/p>\n
This is not leadership. It is lawlessness carried out by mercenaries and thugs on the government payroll.<\/p>\n
Not content to wage war abroad, the government has systematically worked to transform America into a battlefield, setting its sights on the American people.<\/p>\n
That transformation is almost complete.<\/p>\n
In Minneapolis,\u00a0a federal ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good in<\/a>\u00a0the head, while she was behind the wheel of her car. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the Trump administration rushed to paint Good as an agitator and domestic terrorist, justifying the cold-blooded assassination of an American citizen by a masked gunman as an act of self-defense.<\/p>\n
Video footage, including from the ICE agent who can be heard remarking, \u201cFucking bitch<\/a>,\u201d reflects poorly on the government\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n
Rather than de-escalating a situation that they created, the Trump administration has continued to add fuel to the fire, deploying more militarized agents, more force, more intimidation.<\/p>\n
ICE agents have been battering down doors, ramming into private homes, and carrying out warrantless militarized raids<\/a>\u00a0that treat constitutional protections as inconveniences and human beings as expendable obstacles.<\/p>\n
This is the reality of Trump\u2019s America: moral collapse, thuggery, violence, greed, and dehumanization.<\/p>\n
Due process has become optional. Restraint has vanished.\u00a0Violence has been normalized<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A government that recognizes no moral limits will recognize no legal limits.<\/p>\n
And a nation that places its faith in the \u201cmorality\u201d of unrestrained power will soon discover that morality\u2014like liberty\u2014cannot survive where law no longer rules.<\/p>\n
Unchecked power does not protect its supporters\u2014it eventually turns on them, too.<\/p>\n
This is what happens when the rule of law gives way to rule by force.<\/p>\n
Looming over all of this is a question that can no longer be ignored: who is pulling the strings?<\/p>\n
Nothing about Trump\u2019s behavior is rational or sane, even by his own standards: he\u2019s bulldozing the White House, blitz-bombing boats, threatening to seize foreign lands by force, and plastering his name and face on every available surface.<\/p>\n
As diabolical as these distractions are, they are a sideshow to keep us from seeing the long-term plans to lock down the country being put in place by an unaccountable shadow apparatus operating behind the scenes for whom the Constitution means nothing.<\/p>\n
We ignore them at our own peril.<\/p>\n
What we are witnessing is not merely presidential overreach, but the consolidation of power within an unaccountable executive-security apparatus\u2014one that operates beyond meaningful public oversight and treats constitutional limits as obstacles rather than obligations.<\/p>\n
A ruler who sees himself as indispensable soon comes to believe the law is expendable.<\/p>\n
A government that elevates personal ambition over public accountability begins to treat constitutional restraints as obstacles rather than safeguards.<\/p>\n
And a nation that confuses brute force with authority inevitably finds itself governed by fear rather than consent.<\/p>\n
When a president surrounds himself with military parades, inflates defense budgets to obscene levels, deploys federal forces against the civilian population, and insists that his personal morality is the only safeguard against abuse, the republic is no longer drifting towards tyranny\u2014it is sliding fast.<\/p>\n
And when ego becomes policy, the results are predictable: perpetual war, endless surveillance, normalized violence, the criminalization of dissent, and a public conditioned to accept abuses in the name of security and patriotism.<\/p>\n
This is how republics fall.<\/p>\n
Not all at once. Not with a single coup or declaration. But gradually, through the steady erosion of norms, the hollowing out of institutions, and the quiet surrender of moral responsibility.<\/p>\n
Paine warned that \u201ca long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.\u201d That warning resonates with terrifying clarity today.<\/p>\n
Americans are being trained to accept what would have once been unthinkable: law enforcement that kills without consequence, presidents who operate above the law, wars launched without consent, and power exercised without accountability.<\/p>\n
That normalization is the true danger.<\/p>\n
Which brings us to the question that Common Sense forced Americans to confront in 1776\u2014and that we must confront again now: Are we a nation governed by laws, or by the will of a man?<\/p>\n
If the answer is the latter, then no election, no court, no ritual invocation of patriotism can save us.<\/p>\n
The founders did not risk everything to replace one tyrant with another. They did not reject monarchy only to embrace executive supremacy. They did not enshrine checks and balances so that future generations could shrug and hope that those in power would restrain themselves.<\/p>\n
They understood that freedom requires moral courage, not blind loyalty; that resistance to tyranny is not treason, but duty; and that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance\u2014not eternal trust.<\/p>\n
But when the law itself is perverted for corrupt ends, the burden of resistance does not disappear. It shifts.<\/p>\n
The founders also understood something else\u2014something history has confirmed again and again: when government descends into lawlessness, people of conscience, faith and deep moral beliefs are tested. And they either rise to confront injustice, or become complicit in its abuses.<\/p>\n
The Franklin Grahams of this world, who have exchanged moral authority for a seat at Trump\u2019s table,\u00a0would have us believe the lawful response is simply to comply<\/a>\u00a0with those in power.<\/p>\n
But scripture does not command blind obedience to power. The same Bible invoked to demand submission also records prophets confronting kings, apostles defying unjust rulers, and Jesus himself executed for refusing to submit to an immoral state.<\/p>\n
As Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out, \u201cOne has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.\u201d<\/p>\n
That resistance has historic roots.<\/p>\n
During the years leading up to the American Revolution, it was the\u00a0so-called Black Robed Regiment<\/a>\u2014a derisive term used by the British to describe colonial clergy\u2014who spoke most forcefully against tyranny. From pulpits across the colonies, pastors preached sermons condemning unchecked power, defending liberty of conscience, and warning that obedience to unjust authority was itself a form of moral corruption.<\/p>\n
Those ministers did not preach submission to power. They preached resistance to it.<\/p>\n
In Nazi Germany, theologian\u00a0Dietrich Bonhoeffer<\/a>\u00a0watched as the church gradually surrendered its independence and aligned itself with state power. Bonhoeffer warned that when the church becomes silent in the face of evil\u2014or worse, when it cloaks injustice in religious language\u2014it ceases to be the church at all. Silence, he argued, was not neutrality; it was collaboration.<\/p>\n
Bonhoeffer paid for that conviction with his life.<\/p>\n
These pastors understood that the church\u2019s role is not to sanctify empire, but to confront it.<\/p>\n
The same themes running through Paine\u2019s\u00a0Common Sense<\/em>\u00a0and the later\u00a0American Crisis<\/em>\u00a0are just as relevant now as they were 250 years ago: no ruler is above the law, no government is entitled to unchecked power, and no people remain free who surrender their conscience to the ambitions of the powerful.<\/p>\n
And as I make clear in\u00a0Battlefield America: The War on the American People<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and in its fictional counterpart\u00a0The Erik Blair Diaries<\/em><\/a>, history has already told us what happens next: when government becomes destructive of liberty, it is not only the right of the people to resist\u2014it is their duty.<\/p>\n