This Speakout was written by Bob Burns, a professor emeritus of political science at South Dakota State University.

I participated in the Hands-Off protest gathering in Brookings. I was one of approximately 300 local citizens who gathered as millions of others gathered across our nation to express concern, frustration and anger about the political, economic and social upheaval that our pretend monarch in the White House has created since his coronation a few months ago.

I have not always participated in street politics as I believed other means of political participation might be more effective in righting wrongs or moving our nation forward. However, the speed at which our democracy, economy and social order are being dismantled has convinced me that our elected lawmakers and appointed judges need to understand that “We the people” demand that they assert their constitutional powers and stop the craziness wrought by executive decrees now.

I do not know any fellow Americans who have expressed a desire to live in a land of political, economic and social chaos as opposed to relative stability. There have been times in our nation’s history when political, economic and social instability challenged us because of happenings or circumstances that could not be controlled until severe crisis was upon us. We reflect on the Civil War, the Great Depression, World War I and World War II and the more recent COVID -19 pandemic to mention a few of those times. This is not one of those times.

The impending severe crisis that threatens to undo our democracy and economic and social order can be averted if our elected members of the U.S. House and Senate and our appointed members of the federal judiciary exercise their constitutional powers to check the unconstitutional excesses of the pretend monarch.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution representing “We the People” anticipated the members of Congress would safeguard Congressional powers to make laws, appropriate funds and create executive departments from executive encroachment. Indeed, members of Congress have all sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. “We the People” gather in protest because elected members of Congress are failing to honor their oath.

The federal judiciary is doing better in honoring their oath by boldly declaring what the law is in opposing decrees of the executive. Shockingly, leadership in the U.S. House now threatens to restrict the jurisdiction of federal courts, dissolve federal courts or defund federal courts because the federal courts are ruling in favor of congressional powers and rights of the people through temporary restraining orders and injunctions freezing legally suspect executive decrees.

The impending crisis I speak of is not imaginary. Universities are being denied research funding if they do not curb protected expression. Likewise, universities and public K-12 schools are being denied funding if they continue to attach value to human diversity, inclusion and equality. Legal residents are being arbitrarily taken by masked agents of ICE and shipped off to a hell prison abroad. Federal offices administering veterans’ benefits, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are being weakened. Funding for health science research, energy research, education research, libraries, museums, and humanities programs are being frozen by decree while Congress fails to protect Congressional prerogatives. Aid in support of the least of our brothers and sisters at home and abroad is frozen. Irrational tariffs sparking a trade war against our strongest allies has been initiated by a stroke of the pen of the pretend monarch, resulting in the loss of trillions of dollars of wealth of fellow Americans and the good will among nations that our nation has sought to promote since the end of WWII.

None of these actions reflect the values of the nation I once took up arms in defense of and spent four decades sharing with students in university classrooms.

We have a choice. Passively accept the executive decrees resulting in more upheaval and a drift toward authoritarianism in the form of a theocracy or technocracy or insist that the legislative and judicial arms of our national government do their duty and reign in the pretend monarch who has cast aside respect for our Constitution and the principle of rule of law. As for me, I will be there for the next Hands-Off protest.