Americans still can choose to defend our nation’s values

Obsequiousness and collaboration spread like viruses to weaken our republic. But each of us can choose integrity.

- MICHAEL S. ROTH GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

HOW DO PEOPLE used to basic freedoms acquiesce to regimes of domination? When government authorities use the formidable violence at their disposal, it’s no wonder that citizens obey. More surprising are the broad patterns of submission by people who suffer no direct threats, and yet they get used to cooperating with a brutal government.

I see it most clearly in higher education, as universities and leaders that once adopted a posture of firm independence now increasingly seem to want to toe the line, even taking out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal to announce their appetite for policies that would please those in power. It’s not just college campuses, though. That shortsighted shift toward accommodation is playing out across the country, in one institution after another.

It’s remarkable what we have gotten used to in just several months: a “secretary of War” who thinks it is legal to execute people in international waters because they might have drugs in their boats; federalized National Guard troops on the streets of major American cities; criminal investigations of the president's political enemies; calls for the death penalty for members of Congress who remind soldiers of their responsibility to the Constitution.