“But today you are the law. You are the law. Not some book; not the lawyers; not the marble statue or the trappings of the court. These are just symbols of our desire for something just”.

                                                            Paul Newman as Frank Galvin in “The Verdict”

This installment is written as the Nation’s Capital is occupied by D.C. National Guard troops along with agents of the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) and National Guard troops from other states.

They are here, supposedly, because crime is rampant in the District, despite data showing that crime, while problematic, is diminishing and already at a 30-year low. The administration, to counter the data, has suggested that the D.C. police have been cooking the books to under report what’s really going on.

Polling shows that the overwhelming majority of Washington residents oppose the presence of imported law enforcement on the streets. If crime really were rampant, one would think the people most endangered would welcome the beefed-up federal presence. But they do not.

We don’t need Sherlock Holmes to tell us what’s going on here. The 47^th president is staging a rehearsal for his larger ambition of one-man rule, extending occupations to other cities. He has said as much, naming some of the cities—all in states that he failed to carry in the 2024 election.

He likes to use words like “patriotism,” and law-abiding citizens, while describing the miscreants he is trying to protect the citizenry from as “scum”.

Of course, there’s a startling irony to the president’s invoking of law and order, and praising law enforcement. He was responsible for provoking one of the most brutal attacks on police in American history on January 6, 2021. Then, to top it off, he pardoned hundreds of the felons who had assaulted and beaten police that day after being convicted or pleaded guilty in court. In the upside down, black is white Orwellian world of Trump, prosecutors are cashiered and felons pardoned

We’ll just note in passing that the same man is himself a convicted felon who may have escaped further convictions by using delaying tactics to prevent prosecution of crimes for which he had been indicted. With his election, pending charges were, of course, dropped. He is, as he proudly announces, the chief law enforcement officer of the United States.

No one should be surprised by any of this. Donald Trump is distinguished in at least one respect: He makes his dark intentions known in public. He announces what his plans are, and it’s a mistake not to take him at his word. He may overstate his ability to shape events—ending wars on “Day One,” lowering prices in supermarkets—but when he says he’s going to do something that he can do, because he has the actual power to do it legally or not—we had best believe him.

His autocratic plans would not be so frightening if other branches of government did their jobs, but they aren’t. Congress—at least the Republicans in the House and Senate—is supine. Much as members might wring their hands in private, and many clearly don’t because they seem to like what Trump is doing, they don’t protest in public for fear of losing their pointless positions. The Supreme Court, which seems to find plenty to object to when a Democrat is in the White House, has no problem clearing the way for Trump and his wrecking crew.

It’s a mistake for us to be pining for a savior. Neither the Lone Ranger nor the cavalry is coming to the rescue. If we’re looking for the perfect hero to rally behind, we’ll be looking in vain. The best we can do is to find the best man or woman who can offer a likely, achievable alternative to the crime and corruption we’re witnessing and lend our support.

Nor should we delude ourselves that this disturbing moment in our history will pass when Trump leaves office. If Humpty Dumpty couldn’t be put back together, we shouldn’t expect that norms and traditions once violated can be easily restored.

A great deal of our system is based on a consensus about what is acceptable and what is not. Trump has kicked aside that compact with apparent impunity. Citizens may demonstrate, but if those in a position to do something meaningful fail to act, a new, dangerous precedent is set. Trump’s acting without authority, without regard for the law establishes precedents that will be there for his successors, sooner or later.

Ultimately the “institutions” that we talk about exist in our minds, in the shared beliefs we value about justice, equality, fairness and tolerance for opposing views. At the risk of repeating myself and re-stating the obvious, the institutions we refer to as being the foundation of our democracy are populated by men and women who must embrace the principles and values that we hold in common. They are our institutions. If we or they stop believing in those ideals, our institutions will crumble.

In the final analysis, the problem is ours to confront. We are our own salvation. We can’t afford to sit on the sidelines, to turn our backs in frustration, indifference or feeling the despair of impotence. As individuals we may feel powerless, but in the thousands or millions, we are a multitude. We can’t be mere spectators. Centuries ago, John Stuart Mill wrote, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing,” It remains true.

This clearly isn’t a happy moment in the history of our Republic. We’re not the first democracy to struggle through hard times. In his first inaugural address Franklin Roosevelt noted that the “common difficulties” of the moment, “concern, thank God, only material things.” In contrast, we are the most prosperous country in the world. The difficulties we face are crises of the spirit. Many of us have lost the way; we need to find the path back.