Our Reasons to Feel Safe from Government Are Not What They Used to Be

Before Trump, no politically active U.S. citizen thought he was taking a risk to his personal safety by criticizing the president and/or his administration.  This country, and, in fact, the entire West, had experienced the Enlightenment (aka the Age of Reason) of the late 18th Century, central to which were the doctrines of the French Revolution and the U.S. Constitution.  In place of monarchy, our societies now had rule of law and various guarantees of freedom, e.g., that of speech and of the press.

250 years later, we Americans live in a country in which these freedoms are teetering on the edge of extinction.  The only reason I don’t feel the terror of an armed state coming to my door is that my following is a tiny fraction of the high-profile activists of our day.