Preface: I have taken the effort of leaving out specific names, names of political parties and groups etc. from this OP in an effort to demonstrate how things look from a birds-eye view. I hope this helps us look at things together, setting our political identities to the side.

From time to time I think it benefits us to take a step back from the day-to-day news stories and take account of where we stand in the big picture of things. The more often we set the agenda for discussing our democracy, the more we benefit, as opposed to simply following the media narratives developing from the left, right, or center (or elsewhere).

This week I have been most alarmed at the rapid, successive attacks on our democratic institutions and on the norms of our liberal democracy. In particular, the destruction of norms surrounding the Department of Justice has been slow at first, but now seems rapid, and complete.

In next to no time we have seen:

• The US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was forced to resign after pressure from the President of the United States to prosecute his political adversaries.

• The President of the United States publicly directed the Attorney General of the United States to move to prosecute his political adversaries.

• The DoJ's Eastern District of Virginia, under new leadership, has indicted the former Director of the FBI on specious charges which multiple prior prosecutors declined to bring to a grand jury.

• The President of the United States has designated a famously de-centralized, amorphous group as a "domestic terrorist organization".

• The President of the United States has launched a further initiative to investigate and prosecute a wide array of American citizens and groups on the grounds of rooting out "domestic terrorism".

This last week, taken on its own merits, has been one of the darkest weeks in the history of the United States Department of Justice and FBI. Yet the speed of these actions, combined with other political stories (namely the assassination of Charlie Kirk) and the expected and predicted nature of the President's actions has largely left us not acknowledging how alarming these actions should be.

The Department of Justice combined with its subservient investigatory and law enforcement agency, the FBI, is immensely powerful. While the President of the United States has already shown the DoJ is no longer in any way independent, the events of this last week leave absolutely no doubt as to this.

That fact alone is a very dark precedent for the United States of America. Full stop.

Combine that with the increasingly wide scope of investigations concerning "domestic terrorism" the President has announced in the last week, and we seem to be barreling towards a situation where the Department of Justice and FBI are being weaponized wholesale against the people of the United States of America for political purposes.

Furthermore, the President has been very explicit about the fact that these efforts will only be aimed at one side of the political spectrum. Regardless, long-term, both sides of the political spectrum stand to lose immensely.

What Nixon did in the shadows during the Watergate scandal, it appears the President of the United States is aiming to do brazenly and out in the open.

In the wake of Watergate, successive American Presidents have respected the norm that the Department of Justice should remain independent to keep things above board, keep the DoJ respected, and maintain the balance of American small-r republican democracy.

That independence is now completely gone and with it we the people have lost something precious.

In addition, the grounds for a massive domestic political intelligence operation appear to be being laid right in front of our eyes.

I propose we should be seeing this as the five-alarm fire it is, and discussing what we can be doing as Americans to prevent this initiative from taking hold permanently within the Executive Branch. Even if you see no problem with the President's actions of his second term thus far, and in particular the last week, you should be able to see the threat this would pose to all of our interests if the shoe was on the other foot.

I could lay out all of the other facets of the attack on our democratic institutions, but for the sake of brevity, focus, and discussion, I've restricted myself to the actions concerning the Department of Justice and the ways it is being weaponized against the American people.

It is clear to me that at this point the ideals of the Constitution of the United States are firmly within the crosshairs of a man who is bent on one thing – political power. Not the faithful execution of his office within the constraints imposed upon him by the Constitution.

Enough with the back story and my thoughts, on to the questions.

Questions for discussion

1. Concerning the actions of the President of the United States, the Attorney General and the Department of Justice in the last week, do you agree with my assessment?

2. What does the total collapse of the independence of the Department of Justice portend for our country moving forward?

3. How will you take action to support and protect our Constitution, as well as our other democratic institutions?

4. How can we work together in real life to better protect the Constitution and our Republic, regardless of our potential political differences?