We resist the dangerous tilt toward tyranny in America.
We acknowledge that dictatorship can happen here, if we let it.
So we defend our democracy by practicing it with renewed vigor.
We vote in every election, but more importantly, we engage with each other in public life every day.
We leave no lie unchallenged; we let no disgusting deed become normal.
For every hour we spend in resistance marches on the streets, we spend ten communicating with our public officials.
We are active contributors in local organizations: churches, temples, mosques, civic associations, service groups, sports teams, art classes.
In them, we talk to our neighbors about civic affairs.
We maintain relationships with people who do not share our political views, and we listen to them with respect.
We know the difference between opinions and facts, between loud rants and serious debates.
We pay attention to the big picture, not just the latest scandal.
We follow the news and get it from credible sources, not propaganda outlets.
We read in-depth articles about public issues in reputable publications.
But we don’t assume that credible sources are always correct: we hold all authorities accountable, however worthy of our respect.
We believe that government, through the democratic process, is meant to serve the people in ways that the market economy cannot.
We work for government policies that reflect our moral values of freedom, compassion, peace, and social and personal responsibility.
We defend our Constitution, but more importantly, we defend our free institutions upon which its credibility rests.
We defend the freedom of the press, especially when the press says things we don’t like.
We defend the free practice of religion, but not the right of religion to take freedom from others.
We defend free speech, especially when it is offensive to us.
We defend the checks and balances of the branches of government, knowing that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
We wave the American flag when we march, lifting it up as the symbol of our resistance to tyranny.
Because our resistance is what it means to be an American.

Yes, Donald Trump is dangerously eroding the foundations of the US Constitution. And no, democracy would not be fully rescued if he were removed from office tomorrow, because he’s as much a symptom as a cause. Our resistance to the threat to democracy is not about just one man, but an active effort to heal the social ills that put him in office.

Democracy is dying a death by a thousand cuts. So many cuts that we’ve lost perspective about the cumulative effects on the victim. These wounds have been inflicted over many years: Trump is just inflicting a lot more of them, a lot faster. The news media have a hard enough time trying to keep up with the latest outrages of a disastrous president. Even the most credible sources of news fail to convey the full scope of the damage he is doing to American institutions. It’s one thing to report on the disgusting comments that Trump made about a fallen soldier, obviously debasing himself in the process. But it’s a lot harder to quantify the debasement of the presidency itself by each new incident among the hundreds of the past ten months. Reputable news sources sin by omission of this bigger picture from their reporting. This contributes to the loss of trust in the press that is endangering its freedom. It gives context to Trump’s chilling words this past week, after threatening NBC’s broadcasting license: “It’s frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write…”

Here is a succinct diagnosis of the trauma to our democracy: “Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day and is felt by the whole community indiscriminately. It does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till they are led to surrender the exercise of their own will. Thus their spirit is gradually broken and their character enervated; whereas that obedience which is exacted on a few important but rare occasions only exhibits servitude at certain intervals and throws the burden of it upon a small number of men. It is in vain to summon a people who have been rendered so dependent on the central power to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity.” Alexis de Tocqueville, the French observer of the American experiment in self-government, wrote this passage in his book, Democracy in America, in 1840.

And resistance is the cure!