To the Editor:
America’s founders rejected monarchy for a reason: no one should ever hold unchecked power. That’s why Indivisible and others rally under “No Kings,” because that principle is under direct assault.
President Trump’s boasts about wanting to be a “dictator on day one” and to “run the country and the world” are not empty words — they signal a dangerous agenda. Through support for the “Unitary Executive Theory” and Project 2025, he seeks to concentrate power in the presidency, gut the independence of federal agencies, demand personal loyalty from public servants and sideline Congress and the courts.
But the threat goes even deeper. Trump has deliberately dismantled government systems to give himself and his loyalists unchecked control over the country. The National Security Council, for example, now serves to advance the president’s personal agenda rather than provide independent advice. Trump and his allies have claimed the constitutional authority not only to ignore laws themselves but to authorize others to do the same — as seen in recent letters from his attorney general to major companies.
We are witnessing a direct assault on the rule of law and an accountable government. Federal courts, legal experts and watchdog groups have documented dozens of actions that violate or undermine constitutional principles: issuing executive orders that override constitutional rights, defying court rulings, attacking First Amendment freedoms and firing oversight officials to install loyalists. The Trump administration has lost numerous legal challenges for overstepping constitutional bounds and he has twice been impeached for abuses of power and obstruction of Congress. Alarmingly, the president has taken the unprecedented step of unleashing the U.S. military domestically, turning the power of our armed forces against the very Americans they are sworn to protect. This pattern of disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law is unmistakable.
Legal experts warn that this is how democracies die. When power is concentrated in one man’s hands, freedom and accountability vanish. We rally under “No Kings” because America must never be ruled by a would-be autocrat. We demand a government that serves the people, not the whims of a single individual.
Now is the time to defend the Constitution, uphold the rule of law, and stop this push toward authoritarianism in its tracks — affirming the fundamental truth that in America, no one, not even the president, is above the law.
Constance Neely,
Co-Chair, Indivisible Highlands
Scaly Mountain