My Father was a Patriot.

He survived WW2 and the two ships that he was on when they were sunk in the South Pacific. His father was also a career military officer for his entire life. My father had a deep sense of fairness, of honor, and he loved this country. As a career military officer my father swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend that Constitution of the United States, even to death if necessary.

My father died at age 84 in 2004. He was a lifelong republican even though there were times when he disagreed with the direction that his party took. I miss him very much and I always will. But I am thankful that he is not alive now, in 2025, to see the disrespect and the ferocious violations thatare being committed against the Constitution by Trump, Musk, the entire Republican party, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, and the media, all to prop up the fascism of one person, Trump.

My father believed fervently in the necessity of fighting fascism during the second world war. I believe that it would have completely broken his heart to see the way in which Trump is now attempting to establish himself as the fascist supreme leader of the United States. Trump’s activity would have enraged my father as it does us now. I believe that Trump would have forced my father to drop his party loyalty to the republican party in disgust for its complicity in the attack on our constitutional republic.

Trump is only able to do what he is doing because he has the support that he has. Thanks to the Supreme Court, the billionaire class controls the republican party. Republicans control Congress and the White House, and, arguably, the Supreme Court. Republicans have the slimmest majority possible in Congress, yet they have control of Congress. Under these conditions the United States currently has no checks and balances, and there are no longer three functional branches of government. Only the executive branch of the federal government appears to be functional at this time. And it is functional only in a destructive, deconstructionist, fascist methodology and agenda. The conservative Supreme Court, instead of being impartial, instead of being apolitical, the Supreme Court is re ”interpreting” and instead of protecting our Constitution, is actively engaged in deconstructing it. So, yes, there has been a coup.

Our Constitution has been our framework, our structure and discipline for going on 250 years. It has been our inspiration and guardian. Will our Constitution survive the current assault against it by Trump and the tiny minority of billionaires that he represents? Will our constitutional republic survive their all-out attack?

Is the love that Americans have traditionally had for our Constitution going to be enough for the more than 330 million of us to rally around it and protect and preserve it from those officers at the highest levels of government who are currently engaged in trying to make it irrelevant and meaningless? The only way that can be done is to work starting at the grassroots level and moving up to a nationally organized endeavor, forming a coalition and united community to do just that. It will take all of us, from people who do not usually participate in civic responsibilities to highly competent professionals with excellent organizational skills and problem-solving expertise to lead the country back onto its former path if we are going to continue to have a constitution that is of, for, and by the people.

Trump’s governing is a mess. His cabinet nominees and appointed officials are bizarrely unconventional, unqualified, and are uniquely dangerous and will put the country to great harm. And they are being rubber-stamped by a republican-controlled senate that does not take its role of advice and consent seriously. Trump is not ruling by law but by executive order, which is not law, many of his executive orders are being challenged and will continue to be challenged as to their and legality and legitimacy in courts. One thing is certain: Ruling by executive order is not ruling by law. Only Congress can make laws. The president only gets to sign them or reject them. But he can’t make them. Executive orders are not laws.

In the first Trump term the country depended on there being “some adults in the room” to not allow Trump to totally crash and burn the country down. This time around Trump is disposing of as many of the adults in the room as he can get away with getting rid of in order to replace them with sycophants who will do as he says. Will Trump’s sycophant replacements have any lines or boundaries beyond which they will be principled enough to refuse and/or redirect the horrendous impulses and illegal actions that Trump is known to commit on a frequent basis? That remains to be seen. But, the fact is, these sycophants will likely be the only adults left in the room unless Trump’s recent firings and purges are found to be illegal and the victims restored to their previous positions.

Will Trump attempt to establish martial law and martial rule? Will he, with his new white Christian nationalist supremacist Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, use the military and all the resources of the DoD and the Pentagon to establish martial law similar to the police states that exist in Putin’sRussia and Kim Jung Un’s North Korea? Will Trump attempt to use local law enforcement to corral and suppress first amendment protests in cities and towns across the country? Will Trump use mercenaries, militias, private contractors and hate groups to provoke civil unrest and use violence and intimidation against Americans exercising their first amendment rights to protest and petition for change and to badger and intimidate Congress to do what he wants? Will the rank and file go along with it? Will the military and law enforcement go along with it?

Up until Trump, the United States has not been threatened by or directly experienced an avowed fascist leader like Germany and South Korea and Ukraine have all experienced. Those countries have all experienced fascism directly and have suffered the consequences and the long and painful rehabilitation that was required to recover from them. Ukraine is currently fighting for its own sovereignty against the aggression of Russia. Germany is currently having mass protests against the extreme right wing political party that has been recently encouraged by Trump’s co-leader, Musk.South Korea recently forced its president out of office and indicted him for obstructing justice, manipulating the electoral process, and attempting to establish martial law. All three of these countries are currently actively involved in fighting fascism. The world is waking up to taking a more active role in fighting fascism. These countries know first-hand how dangerous and destructive fascism is and how long it takes to recover from it. Will the people of the United States have to go through a long and painful process of oppression by fascism before restoration of our democracy and our constitutional republic is possible? As a country, we could understand the problem and solve it. It’s an option. It’s a choice.

There is hope. Whatever you can do on an individual basis, talk to people, get involved, become part of a community mobilized against fascism, to protect our constitution andrepublic, do it. Be engaged. Don’t sit it out.