DearFriends,
While I was teaching our 11th and 12th-graders last week, a man I did not recognize approached TBT’s front doors. I went to greet him and learned that he was a disabled military veteran experiencing homelessness. He had been getting by OK until, amidst the chaos in Washington, the VA stopped mailing him his monthly check. He had run out of money for food.
The same weekend, I received a message from my brother. An unknown sender demanded that, within 48 hours, he reply to an email summarizing five things he “got done” in the previous week. Around the same time, Elon Musk tweeted that ignoring the email would be tantamount to resignation. My brother, who has worked for the Justice Department since completing law school, suddenly feared for his job. And with good reason — his boss had just been fired.
Another story: my close friends Marc and Zoe live in Washington, DC. With neither warning nor explanation, Marc, who is one of the kindest human beings I know, was fired from his job at USAID. His wife Zoe, who is director of a women’s health clinic, expects a substantial cut in her funding. This will diminish her ability to care for women who have nowhere else to turn.
Recently, Musk delivered a speech while gleefully waving a chainsaw in the air. The message? That these severe cuts are part of rooting out systemic fraud in federal agencies. Lies, repeated loudly and often, quickly become true. Meanwhile, those on the receiving end of the saw blade are not corrupt bureaucrats. They are non-partisan civil servants. Many have served under several different administrations. They are inspectors and safety personnel for aviation and nuclear security. They are scientists saving lives. They are social workers caring for wounded veterans. These cuts hurt Marc, Zoe, my brother, and our local veteran. They harm the children who rely on their incomes. The savings are small, but the suffering is vast.
TBT members have already been impacted, too. If you are affected, I hope you will reach out to me. I would like to understand what you are going through. How much cutting will turn out to be legal? Will it even matter?Americans have long viewed the government with suspicion. It's part of our founding story, after all: we sought refuge from the caprice of kings. In our lifetimes, Bill Clinton proclaimed, “the era of big government is over.” Before him, Reagan told us that “government is the problem.”
But whatever we believe about the policies of the government, we must respect our system of government. Our elected officials take an oath to uphold the Constitution. Their loyalty is to our Republic, not to any one person. The Constitution’s separation of powers and checks and balances are meant to prevent monarchy. The system’s brilliance lies in its decentralization of power and tolerance of dissent. This is so critical, because we hold a variety of views!We do not agree on every issue.
But we do agree to be bound by the decisions that we make collectively. We can overturn old laws, and pass new ones. We can protest. We can engage in civil disobedience. We can even change the system itself— the constitution tells us how.But what is happening now is that a handful of people are rapidly trying to change our system of government, unconstitutionally. This poses an existential danger to our country. It is wrong. And history shows that when political chaos dominates, Jews lose.
It took the Nazis less than two months to dismantle Germany’s constitutional republic.
Historian Anne Applebaum teaches that when democracies fail, it is generally because a democratically-elected leader assaults the system of government. He commandeers agencies that serve the public. He demands fealty, and those who refuse are removed. This consolidation of power is known as “state capture.” It’s how Orbán rose to power in Hungary, Erdoğan in Turkey, and Chávez in Venezuela. It has happened on the right and the left. In the 1700s our founders feared that a leader might one day threaten our Republic. Jefferson, Madison, and others were inspired by the great philosopher John Locke. In his Second Treatise on Government, Locke writes that when a leader disregards legal order, he gives up legitimacy and the people are justified in treating him as a “thief and a robber:”
“[W]hosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law and makes use of the force he has under his command…ceases in that to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another,” Presidential historian Stephen Knott has written that George Washington could have been our first king. He could have stood before the Continental Army, and with a nod of his head, gained a throne: “A lesser man might have been tempted to… pave the way for despotism.” But Washington made a different choice: he went home. That was a formative moment for American Democracy, and it’s one of the reasons Washington is celebrated as a hero.
As Jews, we have lived and died at the whims of tyrants. The Purim Story, which we will retell later this month, is a cautionary tale about how swiftly the tides can turn when we are not prepared to fight evil. I believe it is our responsibility as patriots to actively oppose every antidemocratic act that threatens our Republic. Here are a few ways to start:
●Regularly call our members of congress[(202) 224-3121] to express our views and demand accountability,especially if and when the administration defies a court order.
●Protect voting rights. We need to keep fighting for free and fair elections. We can volunteer locally. We canoppose the SAVE Act (H.R. 22) when it comes up for a vote. This piece of legislation would depress the voteand disenfranchise millions of voters, including 69 million married women who changed their last name.
●Support institutions that function as true checks on executive power. These include high-quality journalistic outlets, federal courts and judges, and our elected officials.
There are certain moments in a lifetime when we feel the weight of history on our shoulders. For me, this is one of them. Good people may disagree on policy, but we should unite in protecting democracy. Some of you will surely see this message as partisan. I promise you— it is not. I would speak out if any president was taking such dangerous antidemocratic actions— Democrat, Republican, Independent, or Martian.
Until recently, both parties supported USAID, the VA, and Medicaid. Until recently, both parties respected our democracy. I don’t care much about which party is right or wrong right now. I care that my son will grow up in a free country. Let’s work together to protect that freedom.
Shalom,
Rabbi Moss