There’s a reason they all have to swear an oath to follow the Constitution.

The people in the House and the Senate, and all through the executive branch.

They are obligated to swear before God and man that they will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and bear true faith and allegiance to it.

Every last one of them.

It’s just like the oath 41 million Americans over some 250 years have sworn as they entered the military service of the United States. It is an uncompromising, never-ending promise to place the Constitution first and foremost, above all other considerations.

It is also, unfortunately, an oath routinely ignored and flagrantly violated by elected officials of both parties at the highest levels of the United States government. That fact is the defining and possibly dooming reality of contemporary American politics. Hardly any of them have the honor, integrity or intelligence to keep their oaths or understand the importance of doing so.

And the electorate is hardly any better.

We vote and support or oppose positions and politicians not because of their fidelity to constitutional principles, but because of self-interest, tribal identification or hatred. We pick a team and we support it, no matter how immoral or unconstitutional its principles, and we oppose the other team, no matter how innocuous or correct it might be. We have a politics of defective loyalty, in which we value allegiance to subordinate and potentially sinister priorities.

Like party, philosophy and personality.

Certainly, these can be useful and even moral when secondary loyalties. But when they are primary, when they are more important than following the Constitution, they are mere excuses for petty treason.

When you choose loyalty to your party over the Constitution, you are a traitor to American liberty. When you choose loyalty to your philosophy over the Constitution, you are a traitor to American liberty. When you choose loyalty to a politician over the Constitution, you are a traitor to American liberty.

And through ignorance or maliciousness, many people in both parties – in government and across the nation – seem unaware of or uncaring about the constitutional principles that the Framers gave us as protections of our freedom. Yes, some point to the Second Amendment and others point to the Fourteenth, and they and the other amendments contain precious guarantees of liberty, but the foundation of freedom is in the articles, before the amendments, in the structure and balance of our federal government.

Three co-equal branches of government, set in tension against one another, with definite powers assigned to each and to the states, create a system of limited government intended to preserve the rights of the people and control the powers of the politicians. When we follow the Constitution, the people remain sovereign and the government remains subservient.

But when we abandon the Constitution, when we allow the balance of power to be lost and one branch or one person to become too powerful, we lose our safeguard of liberty, and we oscillate toward tyranny.

That’s not political rhetoric, that’s historical fact.

And contemporary reality.

For three administrations or more, we have had an unconstitutional, imperial presidency, and now we have an administration seemingly exercising all the powers of the executive and legislative branches combined. The president is imposing tariffs, taxes, treaties, appropriations and conflicts, all powers vested in the Congress by the Constitution. We have replaced the legislative process – by which the Constitution intended the voice of the people to be heard and heeded – with more than 200 executive orders, signed with a large marker and handed down as binding upon the people and government of the United States.

All of this is in violation of the oath to support and defend the Constitution, and to bear true faith and allegiance to it. Our president has played fast and loose with his oath, as have the congressional leaders who let him get away with it. None of this is acceptable.

And while pointing that out may be disloyal to party or personality, it is not disloyal to country, and it is in obedience to the oath that many of us have had privilege of taking.

I voted for Donald Trump and support many of his policies and priorities. I am grateful for his successes thus far, and anticipate more in the future. But you can’t do the right thing the wrong way. Tyranny isn’t acceptable merely because you agree with the tyrant, and the wrong thing doesn’t become right just because your team does it. Donald Trump has aggrandized far too much freedom-threatening power to the presidency, and he must be reined in.

Which would require the House and Senate, in a bipartisan fashion, to do their duty, to challenge the abrogation of their constitutional powers and restore balance. Given conduct thus far, that doesn’t seem likely. Democrats seem content with political grandstanding, and Republicans – even the supposed Constitution hawks – are fawning and obsequious, caring more about currying favor with the White House than having fidelity to their oaths – right, Mr. Speaker? The failure of Congress to do its constitutional duty seems likely to continue.

Which leaves the Supreme Court.

The Constitution – and Marbury v Madison – created a protection of last resort, a judicial review, that holds the actions of the government or a government official to compliance with the supreme law of the land. The Supreme Court, in this session and in sessions to follow, will be asked to evaluate the constitutionality of many actions of this administration. Much rides on how and what it decides, and that rides on how its members keep their oaths.

Because the president and his cabinet having failed to keep their promise to follow the Constitution, and all but a handful of the 535 members of Congress having failed to keep theirs, the future of the Republic may well come down to whether or not five members of the Supreme Court keep theirs.

Let’s pray they do the right thing.

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