Most Americans – including, I hope, the millions who proudly wear those red hats- believe in something very simple and sacred: America only works if the rules apply to everyone. That is the promise of the Constitution. That’s the deal our Founding Fathers made with us. And that is the deal we are in danger of breaking. Not because of taxes. Not because of immigration. Not because of foreign enemies. But because something more dangerous. We’ve started letting one man’s labels matter more than the truth. If we don’t stop it, we will not have a constitutional republic to hand to our children and grandchildren.

When Robert Mueller investigated Russian interference, Trump did not argue the evidence. He didn’t say why the allegations were wrong. He said only one thing, “Witch Hunt”. The problem is that millions of Americans believed him. Not because they saw the evidence. Not because they read the report. But because the label was repeated so loudly and so often that it drowned out everything else. Of course, Trump had a lot of help, and that was pretty much the entire Republican Party. With the help of the Republican party, that is how accountability dies – not with a gunshot, but with a slogan.

Every President gets hammered by the press. Regan did. Bush did. Obama did. And lord knows that Biden did. But Trump did something new - he declared “Fake News”. Suddenly, anything negative wasn’t just inconvenient. It wasn’t biased. It was fake. Once a leader convinces the people that the press is the enemy, he can convince them of anything. One problem that I really have with this is that the truth and much of the American people have become strangers. A country that can’t believe in basic facts can’t defend itself – not from foreign threats like election interference or the corruption that is at home.

Trump brought to the forefront the words “Deep State.” What in the hell is the “Deep State”? When career diplomats like Marie Yovanovich and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified under oath, they were not acting as Democrats or Republicans. They were doing what the law required. Trump didn’t challenge their facts. He didn’t challenge their testimony. He labeled them: ‘Deep State”. He told millions of Americans that anyone who followed the law instead of the president was a traitor. Think about that. That’s not patriotism. That’s not conservatism. That’s not American, at least that was what I thought. “Deep State” is just a label that is used to make you not trust the truth and not trust the one who is telling the truth. It is like telling a child that the boogie man is going to get them. Trump and a few Republicans have used the label “Deep State” to try to convince people that they are the victims of some sinister plot when they don’t have an explanation or are trying to hide the truth. I think that is the type of thinking our Founders warned us about.

How many times have you heard the label “Enemy of the People”? That was never a phrase that any President had ever spoken until Trump. Ten years ago, I would have never thought that a president would call so many Americans “enemies of the people”. Trump has called the press the “Enemy of the People”. That is the same phrase that dictators have used to silence critics.  No American president -not one – ever used that phrase before. Not Nixon, Not LBJ. Not anyone. Because once a president decides that anyone who disagrees with him is an “enemy”, the country stops being a Republic and starts becoming something else entirely. We are no longer a country that has a free press, and one of the reasons is the attacks that not only Trump but his entire Administration has made on the press, all the way down to threatening to revoke their broadcast license. Trump has labeled the Democrats enemies of the people. Why? Because they oppose Trump. That is not how a constitutional republic is supposed to work.

“Rigged” is a word that Trump has brought to the forefront of every conversation about today's election. Labeling an election as “rigged” even before the ballots are cast is not how you ensure that the democratic system is going to be honored. There was no evidence that the elections were going to be “rigged”. There was no evidence that the election was actually “rigged”. There was no evidence of fraud. But there was evidence that he feared losing. Fear of losing does not constitute a “rigged” election. If a president can declare an election illegitimate simply because he doesn’t like the results, then the elections stop being elections. And once an Election stops being real, the Republic is gone. Are we close to losing our Republic?

America has seen this before, but not to the extent that Trump and the Republicans have taken it. Andrew Jackson called the National Bank a “monster”. Nixon labeled investigators as political enemies. Joseph McCarthy destroyed innocent Americans with the word “communist”. Those were moments. What we are living through now is a method. A method where labels replace facts, loyalty replaces truth, and personal grievance replaces the Constitution. This is not normal. This is not conservative. This is not American.

Everyone, including MAGA, should care. If one President can escape accountability by calling everything rigged, fake, or a witch hunt, then any president can. The next one may be someone that you don’t support, and he uses a label on you. If we let one man stand above the law, then the law stops protecting us. It stops protecting your family. It stops protecting your freedom. It stops protecting your vote. That is the danger. That is the threat. That is the moment that we are in.

This isn’t about hating Trump. It’s about loving America enough to defend the rules that keep us free. Because once the labels win, the truth loses. When the truth loses, the Constitution doesn’t stand a chance. If we want to keep this Republic, truly keep it, then we have to stop letting slogans do the thinking for us.  The Founders gave us a country. It’s on us to keep it.