Things are getting worse in America, and there’s no reversal in sight. As the 2026 election gets closer, it’s increasingly clear that the Democratic Party has no interest in restoring Constitutional limits and checks and balances. They’ve entered a gerrymandering race with the Republicans. Hakeem Jeffries is reassuring the public that impeachment will not be his top priority if the Democrats gain a majority in the House. Democratic candidates are working to buy votes with promises to spend money and tax somebody else. The hope was always thin at best. The Republicans once claimed to favor limited government; the Democrats never have, and they don’t know how to start now.

There’s been a lot of anger at Trump from the general public, but it’s unfocused. There’s been strong and sustained outrage at ICE, but not as much at the illegal and unprovoked war against Iran or the murderous attacks on unarmed boats. It’s mixed with unproven accusations of pedophilia and repeated reminders that he was convicted for the relatively minor crime of disguising hush money as legal expenses. The “No Kings” protests make the news and then fade away. In spite of the big rallies, there isn’t a philosophically focused movement to rein in the executive branch and remove the Trump gang from power. Doing that would mean reversing a trend that started long before Trump’s presidency.

Freedom is always partial and unstable, but we’re heading into an age where corruption and intimidation are the norm. Power will be concentrated in the executive branch, and regardless of which party controls it, it will govern by decree. Congress has become increasingly helpless for decades, and it will get worse. The future looks like rule by unconstitutional monarchs, whether one party gets a stranglehold on the office or not.

Things have been this bad before, usually during wartime. The worst years for freedom came under Woodrow Wilson, when people got long prison sentences for opposing US participation in World War I or even for making a movie about the American Revolution. It could get that bad again.

It shouldn’t have been hard to build a coalition that a broad majority of Americans would support. Just say that we should forget our differences long enough to step away from the precipice. But for too many, Trump is just an opportunity for partisan politics. We’ve missed the chance.

It doesn’t mean we should give up. It means we have to focus on the long-term battle for restoring liberal ideals. (Once again, by “liberal” I mean the principles of a free and open society, not the political left.) It means convincing people that freedom is better than authoritarianism, reason is better than raving, principled action is better than pragmatism. It means keeping the high ground and encouraging the best we see in people.

I’m over 70, and I may not live long enough to see a resurgence of freedom and justice in the US, but I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life in despair. I can still work for that resurgence and try to mitigate some part of the descent. Mob thinking and rage are powerful in the short term, but in the longer view, reason is stronger than madness, freedom is stronger than tyranny, and truth is stronger than lies.