We Don't Bow

Good evening, America. If you turn on cable news right now, you'll see a lot of well-paid people in expensive suits looking down their noses at the "No Kings" protestors. They call them hysterical. They call them alarmist. They tell us that the republic has survived 250 years, so everyone just needs to take a deep breath, go to Applebee's, and let the occupant of the Oval Office do whatever the hell he wants under the guise of "absolute immunity."

It’s gaslighting on an industrial scale.

The people marching in the streets aren't overreacting. They are just the only ones left in this country who seem to remember the actual job description of the American Presidency. They remember that the guy sitting behind the Resolute Desk is supposed to be a public servant, not a sovereign immune from the criminal code.

If you don't believe the protestors, maybe you’ll believe the men who actually held the job, back when the people in that office understood the terrifying weight of the Constitution, rather than treating it like a customized non-disclosure agreement.

Let’s start with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The man defeated actual, literal fascism. He didn't cozy up to dictators; he buried them. In 1938, FDR sent a message to Congress with a warning that should be plastered on every billboard in Washington today:

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself."

Read that again. We are currently watching a concerted effort to convince the courts and the public that a President's personal, private power, his whims, his grievances, his legal immunity, supersedes the democratic state. When a chief executive claims he is completely shielded from prosecution for "official acts," he isn't executing the law. He is elevating himself above it. He is building the exact private power monopoly FDR warned us would suffocate our liberty.

Then there’s Harry Truman. Truman dropped the atomic bomb, rebuilt Europe, and fired General Douglas MacArthur for insubordination. He knew a thing or two about raw executive authority. But he also understood its fundamental limits. Truman famously described the reality of the presidency like this:

"I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have sense enough to do without my persuading them. That's all the powers of the President amount to."

Can you imagine the current administration admitting that? Of course not. Because persuasion requires humility, intellect, and respect for the people you are trying to persuade. When you think you're a king, you don't persuade. You decree. You purge. Truman also explicitly warned us about what happens when leaders abandon persuasion for force: "Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens."

That isn't some hypothetical slippery slope; it’s the exact blueprint the protestors are trying to stop.

So, how do we stop it? How do we remind a wannabe monarch that he serves at the pleasure of the people, not by divine right? Lyndon B. Johnson gave us the answer. LBJ was a ruthless, arm-twisting political brawler, but he understood the mechanics of freedom better than almost anyone. When he signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, he laid out the ultimate weapon against autocracy:

"The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men."

That is what the "No Kings" protestors are defending. They are defending the instrument that prevents the walls from closing in. They understand that if a President is completely unaccountable to the courts, he eventually figures out a way to become unaccountable to the ballot box.

The pundits telling you to calm down are selling you a sedative while the house is being robbed. The protestors are the fire alarm. They are channeling Roosevelt, Truman, and Johnson to remind us of the most basic, fundamental premise of the American experiment:

We don't do kings here. And we sure as hell don't bow.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The War on the Poor Was Never a Secret, It Was a Strategy

Poverty in America isn’t an act of God or some twist of fate. It’s a set of decisions made in smoke-filled rooms, boardrooms, and courtrooms by people who think struggle builds character, as long as it’s not theirs. Every time this country stood at a crossroads where we could’ve built a nation that treats dignity as a right, conservative power slammed the door. They did it with a smile, a flag pin, and a sermon about self-reliance. Don’t be fooled. The war on the poor has never been hidden. It’s been policy. After World War II, America could’ve locked in prosperity for everyone who worked. Organized labor was strong, wages were rising, and a middle class was being born. Then came the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, sold as “balance” between workers and bosses but written to break labor’s knees. It outlawed solidarity strikes, let states pass “right-to-work” laws that really mean “right-to-work-for-less,” and tied unions in legal knots. Truman vetoed it; Congress overrode him. That was the first...
Read more

Moral Failure

In 2003, Rev. Jeremiah Wright roared from the pulpit: “God damn America.” He was not calling for destruction, but for accountability. He was condemning a nation whose policies had betrayed its own ideals, whose injustices had metastasized while its leaders wrapped themselves in a hypocritical patriotism. Two decades later, his words echo with chilling relevance. America stands again at a precipice. We witness the rise of voter suppression masquerading as “election integrity.” We watch as billionaires warp democracy to protect their wealth while working families struggle to survive. We see school boards and state legislatures banning books while children die from bullets politicians refuse to regulate. We hear the shrill cries of “freedom” from those who would take bodily autonomy from women and strip LGBTQ Americans of their basic rights. And above all, we see the soul of the nation, once proudly proclaiming “liberty and justice for all,” cracking under the weight of lies, corruption, ...
Read more

The Conclave...

The white smoke has not yet risen. The Sistine Chapel remains closed to the world, as cardinals from across the globe gather under the frescoed eyes of Christ and the saints. It is a sacred pause in the life of the Roman Catholic Church, a moment set aside for prayerful discernment, ancient ritual, and, hopefully, holy listening. And yet, outside those sealed doors, the world clamors. Political figures, media personalities, and power brokers, many of whom show little interest in the church except when it serves their ideology, are already attempting to shape the outcome. As a Reformed Christian watching this unfold from outside the Catholic tradition, I do so with both deep respect and honest concern. The election of a pope is not just a moment of internal church governance. It sends ripples across global Christianity, international diplomacy, and the moral witness of the faith itself. But what should be a moment of spiritual gravity is now being treated, in some corners, like a campai...
Read more