Speaking for myself, one thing I learned over the past few years - to my shame - is how much I took my Constitutional rights and the stability of the American republic for granted. I treated freedom of speech as my birthright, and never had to exercise a bit of effort for it. /1
I treated the granite-solid nature of the Constitution, the balance of the U.S. civil-military relationship, the independence of the judiciary - all as facts of nature rather than as precious jewels to be guarded against theft from within. /2
I was plenty vigilant about defending our nation from foreign threats, because I believed that my fellow citizens, whatever our collective sins or flaws, would never countenance attacks on our common home and our right to live in it. /3
Some out there will say this reflects “privilege,” earned by my skin or gender. Maybe so. But even when we did wrong, we - as a nation - wanted to do right. When we failed, we fought in public about our shortcomings. We prided ourselves on this. /4
On a personal level, I have never experienced the number of attempts to silence me, demands I be removed from my job, and even physically threatened as often as I have since 2015. Not in any post, not in any city, not during any other administration. /5
This, I realize, is how others have felt before this. But I always believed that the system, the society, the law, even most of our leaders, were on the side of right and would defend any of us against such thuggery. I know now I took this too much for granted. /6
We are not past the point of no return. But it is time to exercise every Constitutional right, especially *speech* and *voting* - with no excuses, without whining, without hedging. This is a time for fortitude, consistency, confidence, and dedication to the American idea. /7
We don’t get many second chances in a human life. The life of nations is even less forgiving. We have, as a republic, lived through multiple near-death moments. We are perilously close to running out of chances. /8x
