These Days Before the Vote: The Consent of the Governed

Whitewater, Wis. — This cloudy Friday evening in Wisconsin continues These Days Before the Vote, a series addressing, each day before the November election, a principle or position on which our liberal democratic tradition rests.

In the Declaration, the Founders affirm that, in defense of rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Trump, having disclaimed Project 2025's authoritarian populist agenda in 2024, implemented that dark program once in office. It is true, of course, that many of us saw that his denials were merely more lies in his lifetime of lies. It is enough to know, however, that he did not run on the program that he has now imposed and inflicted on our people.

Indeed, he rules as a senescent monarch rather than governs as a free republic's president. Executive order after executive order is, truly, edict after edict.

Trump does not govern our people — he rules over us. In doing so, he has shown himself unfit to govern even if the notion momentarily crossed his mind. Like Benedict Arnold (Norwich, Connecticut) and Jefferson Davis (Fairview, Kentucky), Donald J. Trump (Queens, New York) is a native-born man who has betrayed the place and people of his birth.