Oath

When Things Fall Apart

(Enjoy the essay narrated by the author!)

The King of Gee-Whiz, 1906 No Known Copyright Restrictions, WikiMedia Commons Modified by Writer

Hello, Friend,

The following is the oath that our legislative officials take when they are sworn into office. It was reworded from the original oath in 1863, near the end of the Civil War.:

“I, name here, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Society is built on the collective agreement to follow rules, laws, and oaths, even if we know that these things are illusions. Without them, we descend into chaos and disorder. They are the glue that binds us together. Our shared belief in the importance of the greater good gives us common purpose. It keeps us united, even if we disagree on many of the finer points of the execution. We are in a moment of unraveling in the United States, our divisions becoming greater as the glue disintegrates and things begin to come apart at the seams.

The illusions of rules, laws, and oaths are fading away with shocking rapidity. The elected officials from the Republican Party no longer appear to care about their oaths. They’re fleeing Town Halls and hiding from their constituents. They seem more concerned with being primaried by individuals financed by the world's richest man than they are with saving this country from an authoritarian takeover. At least, this is what they’re saying out loud. Behind closed doors, rumor has it, that the threats they are facing are more insidious. If they are, in fact, facing threats of violence or worse against themselves and their families, they need to shine the light on that. That is how you disinfect things, because without sunlight infections fester and grow into malignancies which are much more difficult to eradicate.

I feel for these officials if they’re under threat, I do. This administration is toxic and the forces pulling the strings are powerful and malevolent. They are hellbent on the deconstruction of our republic, with attempts to pilfer our reserves, attacks on our judiciary, the abandonment of our allies, threats to the health and financial solvency of the citizenry, the pillaging of our national parks, and a complete capitulation to Russia. The thing is, though, our elected officials took an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic without any purpose of evasion. If they can no longer abide by that oath, they should resign. There is no grey area. When you take an oath to defend the constitution and the republic, it isn’t a hollow promise, it’s a sacred pledge.

Treason

1. The betrayal of allegiance toward one's own country, especially by committing hostile acts against it or aiding its enemies in committing such acts.

2. The betrayal of someone's trust or confidence.

3. The offense of attempting to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance, or of betraying the state into the hands of a foreign power; disloyalty; treachery

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

The current president fomented an attack on our nation’s capital in an attempted coup. This should have barred him from ever running for office again, but the GOP ignored their oath which has resulted in our current dilemma. The new administration has been aiding and abetting an enemy in Russia and turning on an ally in Ukraine. They are abandoning long held, critical global alliances. They have intimated that they are not going to follow the rule of law, in blatant defiance of the Constitution. They are dismantling our government, firing civil servants and closing agencies without congressional oversight, disabling protections and rights, filling their cabinet with toadies and sycophants, and threatening the citizens. This makes them a domestic enemy. Having taken an oath to support and defend the constitution against that enemy our Senators and Representatives must either follow their oath or step away to allow someone to step in who will.

Republican Party elected officials are cowering, but it might behoove them to consider that there won’t be primaries or elected officials or executive, legislative, and judicial branches if the authoritarian takeover is completed. When authoritarians take power, anyone who is a threat to that power is a target for retribution. Appeasing the vulgarians only buys time, not safety. No one is safe. Safety is an illusion. Look to other authoritarian regimes to see how things worked out for those who covered their own asses hoping they’d be safe.

This is a pivotal moment. There is no hiding from or denying it. We are all being called to decide what we are willing to do to defend our republic. Everything that is unfolding was clearly articulated in Project 2025. The GOP is in control of all three branches of our government. The architects of Project 2025 have been placed in powerful positions and are decimating the current government workforce. They are destroying health agencies and critical medical and scientific research. They have fired the leaders in our military and the JAGs who would serve to temper any illegal behaviors to replace them with toadies and sycophants. The dregs of DOGE have dug themselves deep into the source code of our government’s digital files and what they have done there will likely be irreparable.

What happened in the Oval Office last week was shameful, heartbreaking, and disgusting. The participants in this spectacle are enemies of this republic. The appeasement of Vlad’s wishes for Ukraine bodes ill for the safety, welfare, and future of the entire planet. Whatever America once was, it is no more. We’ve broken our oaths, vows, and promises. We’ve taken decades of diplomacy and flushed them down a gilded toilet.

Our elected officials have abandoned their sacred oath and their sworn duty to the American people. They work for us. It is up to us to continually remind them of this inconvenient truth. If they won’t hold town halls, then we must continue to call them out through daily contact and protest. If they refuse to honor the oath that they took, then we must shame them into stepping down or vote them out of office (if we are able), and in doing so send them crawling into the dust bin of history.

This is all exhausting and overwhelming and shocking. That’s intentional. Yet, it is not really all that shocking to anyone who has been paying attention. They told us exactly what they planned to do. Tens of millions of people decided to ignore what they were being told, not bother reading Project 2025, and instead put their faith in the Liar-in-Chief when he insisted he had nothing to do with the game plan. Most of us knew better, but none of us will escape the misery about to unfold. Perhaps we can curtail some of it by keeping the pressure on our feckless officials and with any luck, swing the house with these April special elections. Unfortunately, both of these seats are in Florida so it’s anyone’s guess how that might pan out. If they come for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the ACA, as it appears they are poised to do, maybe we still have a fighting chance.

I remain, as ever, pragmatically optimistic.

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