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When institutions fail, what must citizens do to preserve a republic? Drawing on John Adams, this essay examines disciplined refusal and civic responsibility.
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John Adams on Virtue: After the Line Is Crossed
Feb 04, 2026
This is the third Fulcrum essay in my three-part series, John Adams on Virtue, examining what sustains a republic when leaders abandon restraint, and citizens must decide what can still be preserved.
Part I, John Adams Warned Us: A Republic Without Virtue Can Not Survive, explored what citizens owe a republic beyond loyalty or partisanship. Part II, John Adams and the Line a Republic Should Not Cross, examined the lines a republic must never cross in its treatment of its own people. Part III turns to the hardest question: what citizens must do when those lines are crossed, and formal safeguards begin to fail. Their goal cannot be the restoration of a past normal, but the preservation of the capacity to rebuild a political order after sustained institutional damage.
When the Republic Fails Its Own Test
A government that mistreats its own people does not stop because citizens are polite or because leaders rediscover conscience. It stops when the costs of abuse rise and the supports that make abuse possible begin to fracture. In modern states, that fracture often arrives as a political wave, when legitimacy loss, institutional resistance, and electoral consequences converge faster than power can adapt.
John Adams understood this tension. He supported independence from Britain, yet distrusted disorder, mob violence, and passion unmoored from law. His defense of British soldiers after the Boston Massacre trials reflected a belief that standards must be upheld even when anger is justified.
When a republic fails its own test, citizens face a choice. They can answer lawlessness with lawlessness, often strengthening the hand of power. Or they can practice a more demanding form of resistance: disciplined refusal. As used here, disciplined refusal is nonviolent action that imposes real political, legal, or economic cost by disrupting implementation, exposing abuse, or denying legitimacy in ways power cannot easily absorb, while preserving legitimacy for whatever comes next.
The old normal is gone at the institutional level, even if much of daily life appears unchanged. Authoritarian drift leaves residues, reordering coalitions in ways that benefit power and normalizing behaviors that outlast any single administration. Moving forward depends not on restoring those old alignments, but on forming new coalitions capable of closing the divisions that authoritarian governance relies on.
1776, Honestly Assessed
Did disciplined, nonviolent resistance work in 1776? Only up to the point where political authority foreclosed every remaining nonviolent path.
Before independence, the colonies exhausted nonviolent levers. Boycotts, nonimportation agreements, and committees of correspondence created a functioning system of coordinated refusal. By 1774, the Articles of Association imposed real economic pressure on British trade and social pressure within colonial communities to enforce compliance with non-importation and non-consumption agreements. Enforcement was local and social as much as economic; communities policed compliance themselves, demonstrating capacity for self-rule even before independence.
Parliament responded with coercion. The port of Boston was closed. Massachusetts’ charter was altered. Military authority expanded. When colonial leaders appealed again, the Crown refused to engage, rejecting the Olive Branch Petition. That refusal closed the political path. Independence followed not because violence was preferred, but because alternatives had been foreclosed.
Adams supported separation while remaining wary of what unrestrained passion would do to the republic after the fighting stopped. He believed legitimacy itself was a form of power the public controlled, and once squandered, difficult to recover. His concern was never only how to break from tyranny, but how to avoid becoming it, a throughline in the Adams Papers Digital Edition.
What Disciplined Refusal Preserves
Disciplined refusal does not guarantee success. It preserves conditions without which success becomes impossible. It operates across society: citizens willing to accept personal risk, professionals and civil servants bound by ethics, local officials protecting normal life, and institutions that slow or resist abuse rather than implement it smoothly.
Nonviolent resistance preserves coalition breadth. It allows participation across levels of risk and belief and denies power the polarization it needs to endure. Authoritarian systems survive by forcing the public into two camps. When opposition turns violent, it shrinks its own tent and hands the regime the story it wants to tell, that only repression can restore order.
Disciplined refusal does the opposite. It keeps the door open for conservatives who still care about constitutional constraint, for civil servants and professionals bound by ethics, for local leaders protecting normal life, and for citizens who reject both cruelty and chaos. In a polarized system, restraint is not passivity. It is strategy.
It also preserves institutional capacity. Courts, agencies, and laws remain usable when the crisis passes because they were strained, not obliterated. Privately held preferences can build beneath the surface, creating latent pressure for change that becomes decisive when political conditions shift, a dynamic analyzed by Timur Kuran in Private Truths, Public Lies.
When Violence Becomes Unavoidable
History does not show that violence is never used. It shows when violence ceases to constrain power and begins to reinforce it.
In 1776, violence emerged only after imperial authority foreclosed every remaining nonviolent mechanism. Petitions were rejected, self-government dismantled, and military rule displaced civil authority. British power still depended on broad colonial cooperation. Once that cooperation collapsed, armed conflict became the dominant fact rather than a chosen strategy.
That configuration does not hold in modern states in the same way. Britain’s imperial power, though militarily dominant, still depended on broad colonial cooperation to govern. Contemporary governments possess professional security forces, centralized intelligence, legal mechanisms for emergency rule, and the capacity to suppress violent challengers without relinquishing administrative control. In that context, violence rarely weakens power. It consolidates it, supplying justification for repression and narrowing opposition to a risk-tolerant fringe.
The lesson of 1776 is not that violence restores liberty. It is that violence followed only after legitimacy and cooperation had already broken down. Where modern states retain coercive dominance, armed rebellion is more likely to consolidate authoritarian control than restore democracy. For that reason, disciplined refusal remains decisive, not as a moral preference, but as recognition that legitimacy, compliance, and coalition breadth remain the levers that determine whether power fractures or hardens.
What Remains
John Adams did not believe that republics survive because power learns restraint. He believed they survive because citizens do.
That belief was not sentimental. It reflected hard experience with how easily justified anger becomes ruled by force. The country that emerges from this period will not be the one that preceded it. That question is settled.
The remaining question is whether it will still be governed by standards or only by force. Guardrails with real enforcement power emerge not from unity alone, but from durable alignment across differences. They are enforced through institutions and coalitions rather than through informal restraint.
Adams would say that is the responsibility that remains.
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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives to testify during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on January 28, 2026 in Washington, DC. This is the first time Rubio has testified before Congress since the Trump administration attacked Venezuela and seized President Nicolas Maduro, bringing him to the United States to stand trial.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Marco Rubio: 2028 Presidential Contender?
Jan 31, 2026
Marco Rubio’s Senate testimony this week showcased a disciplined, media‑savvy operator — but does that make him a viable 2028 presidential contender? The short answer: maybe, if Republicans prioritize steadiness and foreign‑policy credibility; unlikely, if the party seeks a fresh face untainted by the Trump administration’s controversies.
"There is no war against Venezuela, and we did not occupy a country. There are no U.S. troops on the ground," Rubio said, portraying the mission as a narrowly focused law‑enforcement operation, not a military intervention.
Ranking Member Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D‑N.H.) sharply questioned whether ousting Nicolas Maduro justified the political and financial costs, citing estimates that the raid and U.S. naval blockade could total as much as $1 billion. Shaheen and other Democrats also raised alarms about Venezuela’s interim leader, former Vice President Delcy Rodríguez; as Shaheen noted, “the Drug Enforcement Administration has reportedly identified Delcy Rodríguez as a significant actor in the drug trade.”
Rubio responded that Rodríguez remains unindicted compared with Maduro and insisted the administration’s short‑term goal is stability, even at the cost of dealing with leaders the U.S. finds untrustworthy. "We are dealing with individuals that in our system would not be acceptable in the long term," Rubio acknowledged. "But we are in a transition to stabilization phase. You have to work with the people currently in charge of the elements of government."
Rubio’s appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee offered a compact primer on his political instincts: calibrate messaging to reassure skeptical Republicans, defend administration actions as lawful and limited, and pivot to competence. In testimony about U.S. policy toward Venezuela, Rubio repeatedly sought to tamp down fears of broader military entanglement. That posture — insistence on control, reassurance to wary colleagues, and a steady stream of talking points — is precisely the leadership style he would bring to a presidential campaign.
That style has upside. For Republican primary voters who prize experience and foreign‑policy gravitas, Rubio’s record and his command of the hearing room are assets. He can credibly argue he knows how to manage crises, brief allies, and sell difficult decisions to a fractious Congress. Rubio’s ability to convert a contentious episode into a disciplined narrative is a skill many candidates lack.
But there are clear liabilities. Rubio is now visibly associated with an administration whose actions in Venezuela and elsewhere have provoked bipartisan concern. His defense of those actions — even when carefully worded — ties him to controversies that could be weaponized in both the primary and the general election. Moreover, the GOP electorate remains divided between establishment figures and insurgent outsiders; Rubio’s resume may read as establishment to voters craving disruption.
Strategically, Rubio’s path depends on the Republican mood in 2027–28. If the party prioritizes stability, foreign‑policy competence, and a candidate who can reassure international partners, Rubio could be a consensus choice. If the party continues to reward insurgent energy and anti‑establishment branding, Rubio’s association with the administration and his measured demeanor could be liabilities.
If Rubio does decide to run for the White House, it wouldn’t be his first bid: he launched a high‑profile 2016 campaign, gained early momentum, but suspended it after losing the GOP primary to Donald Trump—an outcome that underscored both his appeal to establishment conservatives and the limits of that appeal in an insurgent primary environment.
A familiar figure on the national stage, the Cuban‑American politician rose through the Florida Legislature (serving in the state House from 2000 to 2008 and advancing into leadership roles) before winning a U.S. Senate seat in 2010 and building a reputation as a fluent communicator on domestic and foreign policy issues.
Rubio is a manager of narratives: he defends policy by narrowing the frame, emphasizing limits, and offering procedural assurances. That temperament, showcased in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, can be a virtue in a president — or it can read as defensive and overly cautious when voters want boldness.
Should Rubio run in 2028? Yes, if the GOP wants a steady hand and foreign‑policy credibility; no, if the party prizes novelty and distance from the Trump administration’s flashpoints. His Senate testimony this week made both the promise and the peril of his candidacy plain.
Hugo Balta is the executive editor of The Fulcrum and the publisher of the Latino News Network, and twice president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
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In Donald Trump's interview with Reuters on Jan. 24, he portrayed himself as an "I don't care" president, an attitude that is not compatible with leadership in a constitutional democracy.
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Donald Trump’s “I Don’t Care” Philosophy Undermines Democracy
Jan 29, 2026
On January 14, President Trump sat down for a thirty-minute interview with Reuters, the latest in a series of interviews with major news outlets. The interview covered a wide range of subjects, from Ukraine and Iran to inflation at home and dissent within his own party.
As is often the case with the president, he didn’t hold back. He offered many opinions without substantiating any of them and, talking about the 2026 congressional elections, said, “When you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”
However, what caught my attention was something else. It was not so much about Trump’s policy positions as his attitude and conception of his role.
To put it simply, Trump portrayed himself as an “I don’t care” president. No other American president has ever embraced that view as their governing philosophy, and no one has ever been so ready to let everyone know.
That attitude is not compatible with leadership in a constitutional democracy. The Founders made clear that “the president, as the only official elected by the people as a whole, had not only the constitutional but the moral responsibility to act on their behalf—in the interest of the salus populi.”
In addition, someone who does not care is unreachable. Indifference is itself a kind of power, but it is hard to reconcile such a disposition with the requirements of leadership in a constitutional democracy.
Any president’s disposition or conception of leadership is consequential because, as the political scientist James David Barber explains, “The presidency is a peculiar office. The founding fathers left it extraordinarily loose in definition, partly because they trusted George Washington to invent a tradition as he went along.”
“It is,” Barber says, “an institution made a piece at a time by successive men in the White House….(E)very President’s mind and demeanor has left its mark on a heritage still in lively development.” Their mind and demeanor “interact… with the power situation he faces and the national ‘climate of expectations’ dominant at the time he serves. The tuning, the resonance—or lack of it—between these external factors and his personality sets in motion the dynamics of his presidency.”
Another word, Barber argues, that describes a president’s mind and demeanor is “character.” Character is the way “the president orients himself toward life – not for the moment, but enduringly. Character is the person’s stance as he confronts experience.“
The president’s character and his “I don’t care” attitude were made clear throughout his Reuters interview. For example, when he was asked about a poll showing that the American public opposes taking over Greenland, he dismissed the results as “fake.”
He seemed resigned to the fact that, as he put it, “A lot of times, you can't convince a voter….” The president said. “You have to just do what's right. And then a lot of the things I did were not really politically popular. They turned out to be when it worked out so well.”
The famous English political philosopher, Edmund Burke, identified two conceptions of representation in democratic systems. In one, the representative simply channels the views of the people.
The other kind of representation involves acting as a “trustee.” A trustee exercises his own judgment and does not worry about how their constituents feel about each particular issue.
As Burke put it, “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” And over the course of American history, some presidents have acted as “delegates,” others as “trustees.”
But Burke did not anticipate someone like Trump, who is so dismissive of others' views.
That dismissiveness was evident throughout the Reuters interview. When he was asked about concerns expressed by Republicans in the Senate about the Justice Department’s investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, the president said, “I don't care. There's nothing to say. They should be loyal.”
After being told what JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said about the potentially catastrophic impact of that investigation, Trump responded, "I don't care what he says."
A week before the Reuters interview, Trump again showed his “I don’t care” attitude in an interview with four New York Times reporters. This time, in the context of a discussion of his role on the world stage.
The Times reporters asked him if “there were any limits on his global powers.” The president’s response was shocking.
“Yeah,” he told them, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
This “I don’t care about anything but me” response is a symptom of what the journalist and historian John MacArthur says is the president’s “only point of reference… himself.” That is why, MacArthur explains, “he makes no attempt even at faking interest in other people, since he can’t really see them from his self-centered position.”
That is why Trump is unembarrassed to put his "I don’t care" attitude on display and to cast aside unfavorable poll results or what other members of his political party say. Nothing matters to Trump but Trump.
As he explained in the Times interview, “I don’t need international law,” and whether international law could ever constrain him, “depends on what your definition of international law is.” At a later point, when he was pressed to explain why he wanted to take over Greenland, he again made clear that his needs and desires define his approach to the world.
Taking over Greenland was important, the president suggested: “Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do, whether you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”
Trump’s “I don’t care” approach to governance fits a presidential style that Professor Barber called “Active-negative.” Such a style is marked by constant “power-seeking,” and life is defined as a “hard struggle to achieve and hold power.”
Such a president, Barber suggests, as if describing Trump, “has a persistent problem in managing his aggressive feelings.”
And Barber argues, an active/negative type president “is, in the first place, much taken up with self-concern. His attention keeps returning to himself, his problems, how is he doing, as if he were forever watching himself. The character of that attention is primarily evaluative with respect to power. Am I winning or losing, gaining or falling?”
Again, that seems to fit Trump to a tee.
This president or any president can’t do their job well if they don’t care about anything but themselves. And in the case of President Trump, the American people seem to be noticing.
Only 37% of Americans today say that the phrase “cares about the needs of ordinary people” describes Trump well. Sadly, Donald Trump likely doesn’t care about that either.
Democracy is not endangered by disagreements about policy, but it cannot survive if its leaders do not put the public’s health and well-being first.
Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College.
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A portrait of Renee Good is placed at a memorial near the site where she was killed a week ago, on January 14, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Good was fatally shot by an immigration enforcement agent during an incident in south Minneapolis on January 7.
(Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
The Deadly Shooting in Minneapolis and How It Impacts the Rights of All Americans
Jan 28, 2026
Thomas Paine famously wrote, "These are the times that try men's souls," when writing about the American Revolution. One could say that every week of Donald Trump's second administration has been such a time for much of the country.
One of the most important questions of the moment is: Was the ICE agent who shot Renee Good guilty of excessive use of force or murder, or was he acting in self-defense because Good was attempting to run him over, as claimed by the Trump administration? Local police and other Minneapolis authorities dispute the government's version of the events.
There are several videos of the incident, none of which support the government's version of what happened. As is frequently the case, Trump news/speak is fake news. Here is what the videos show:
- The Honda driven by Renee Good was stopped crosswise in the street.
- One ICE agent arrives at the scene. While he is walking around the car, 2 other ICE agents approach the car and tell her to get out of the car, using an expletive, and one tries to open the door.
- The Honda backs up a few feet.
- The Honda starts moving forward and turns to the right.
- The first ICE agent, who is now at the front of the car, says, "Whoa."
- As the car passes the agent, he fires 3 shots at point blank range, 1 through the windshield and 2 through the open driver's side window, and calls her a "F***ing B*****." One video shows clearly that when he fired the first shot through the windshield, the car was passing him, not coming towards him.
- The Honda crashes into a parked car.
This all happened in 20 seconds.
The videos make clear that Renee Good was not attempting to run the ICE agent over, but was attempting to get out of the scene. (If that had been the case, had she not turned to the right, he would have been run over.)
Department of Justice policy states that police can use a gun only when they feel their life or the lives of others are in imminent danger. They cannot use a gun merely to stop someone from fleeing the site.
Even though she had no intent to run him over, things happened so quickly that the agent will try to argue that he felt his life was in danger. But the fact that even when he took the first shot, the car was already passing him belies that assertion. And the fact that he kept shooting as the car moved past him and clearly was no longer in danger would argue that the shooting had nothing to do with self-defense and was just an excessive, improper use of deadly force.
Also, why didn't he just shoot the tires of the car to stop her? Why did he choose to shoot her at point-blank range 3 times? This was not some tyro with a rifle but a person with combat experience and years of experience with guns.
That the government is still claiming self-defense and not allowing the local police to be involved in the investigation is emblematic of the administration's practice of controlling and distorting facts. They have no interest in the truth; they just want a justification for their actions.
Most recently, Trump has indicated that the fact that Renee Good spoke disrespectfully to the ICE agents was grounds enough for the shooting. This runs counter to all established policy on the use of deadly force by police.
Regardless of your view of illegal immigrants, Trump's deportation policies, and the man himself, all Americans should be outraged by the excessive use of force by quasi-military personnel against American citizens as well as illegal immigrants and Trump's defense of their ignoring our "right to life and liberty." This is not an isolated incident but a pattern of disrespect that we have seen frequently in the aggressive actions of ICE, even towards a Congressman.
Americans should show that outrage through massive peaceful demonstrations. Yes, several thousand showed up at a protest in New York City, but the number should have been much more—hundreds of thousands.
This is not a minor matter. It is reminiscent of several of the abuses of power cited by the Founders in writing the Declaration of Independence:
- "He has sent swarms of officers to harass our people."
- "He has, in times of peace, sent Standing Armies among us without the consent of our legislatures."
- "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power."
These offenses are in addition to all the other things Trump has done that are destroying American democracy, the structure that the Founders designed to ensure that in the United States, no one person would ever be able to abuse his power as the British king had done. To prevent such abuse, including failing to respect the legislative process and making the judiciary dependent on his will, the Founders established America's distinctive balance of power with 3 independent branches: legislative, executive, and judicial—each responsible for reigning in any excesses of the others.
Every American who values the freedom and rights that our democracy has provided us should rise up and peacefully demonstrate. Not a voice should remain still. Jefferson believed strongly that we had to protect our rights: "The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold of us."
Why are massive demonstrations important? First, they let you and others feel that your voice is being heard. This is of critical importance in a democracy. Second, it lets the silent majority of people who are either concerned or questioning about this issue see that there are massive numbers of fellow citizens who are concerned and are raising their voices.
Another thing people can do to increase engagement with this issue is to reach out to religious and other organizations in your community and encourage them to offer programs on this topic. Also, go to your local school board and encourage them to address this issue through school programs. Let your representatives in Congress know how you feel.
Finally, Trump was elected fairly by a majority of the American voters. But he has abused and expanded the power that the Constitution gives the President. In our system, the way to free ourselves from Donald Trump is through the ballot box and through our voices.
There are elections this November that will determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the House and the Senate. If Democrats regain control of Congress, that will restore the balance of power the Founders sought to ensure, as the current Republican-controlled Congress has almost entirely deferred to Trump's demands.
If we do not protect our rights, there is a distinct possibility, given the current political dynamic, that we will lose them.
Ronald L. Hirsch is a teacher, legal aid lawyer, survey researcher, nonprofit executive, consultant, composer, author, and volunteer. He is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Chicago Law School and the author of We Still Hold These Truths. Read more of his writing at www.PreservingAmericanValues.com
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