Otherwise, if we join our fellow Americans in passively permitting Trump or any other federal officials, including those in the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, to violate the law, lawlessness at the federal level will then become permanently normalized and acceptable without having to secure a constitutional amendment.

When our American ancestors were presented with a proposal to accept a new federal government after the constitutional convention in Philadelphia, they were extremely leery. For more than 10 years, the states had operated under a very different type of governmental system than what was being proposed with the Constitution. It was a confederation type of governmental system, one in which the states had come together as equal and independent sovereign entities into a confederation, which was a type of joint partnership.

The governing document for this confederation was the Articles of Confederation. The articles called into existence a federal government, but one whose powers were extremely weak. In fact, the powers were so weak that — get this — the federal government did not even have the power to tax people.

That was how Americans wanted it. Unlike Americans today, they didn't want a powerful federal government. They wanted a very weak federal government.

What was their reasoning? They were guided by a basic principle, one with which today's Americans vehemently disagree. That principle was this: that the biggest threat to their freedom and well-being lay not with foreign regimes or foreign actors but rather with their very own federal government. By calling into existence a federal government with very weak powers, including no power to tax, they were reflecting that basic principle.

But there were problems with the Articles. For example, there were trade wars between the states, something that should resonate among Americans today with respect to other nations. In an effort to resolve problems within the Articles of Confederation, the states organized the Constitutional Convention, whose ostensible aim was simply to reform the Articles.

Instead, however, the delegates at the convention, whose proceedings were held in secret, came out with a proposal for an entirely new governmental structure, one that was designed to replace the confederation governmental structure. The new governmental structure would be a limited-government republic, one whose federal government would have significantly greater powers than the federal government under the Articles, including the power to tax people, which our ancestors knew meant the power to destroy and enslave people.

Needless to say, the American people were extremely leery and suspicious. But proponents of the new system assured them that this federal government would continue to be a small, weak government that could never threaten their freedom and well-being. The guiding principle was that the powers of this new federal government would be limited to those few powers enumerated in the Constitution. If a power wasn't enumerated, it could not legally be exercised.