A Veterans Day Letter to the Members of Congress

First, thank you for your service to our nation. I cannot imagine the pressure under which you work every single day. I cannot begin to understand the challenges of aligning your loyalty to your constituents, to your party, and to your nation. I recognize that these values often conflict with one another. I have worked on the Hill with you. I respect the work you do. Sincerely.

But today, as a veteran, I’m writing to ask you to put our nation first. Whether doing so costs you your job. Whether it costs you your friends. Whatever it costs you. Please. Put our nation first.

Because you, our elected representatives, are the only ones who might salvage what is left of our teetering democratic republic. I am asking you to come together to shore up our nation — a nation that has been purchased with the blood of millions of patriots for over two-hundred years. Because if the members of Congress do not stand firm and stand together in defense of our nation, we may well spend next Veteran’s Day mourning the collapse of the United States of America.

The stakes may be that high. I believe they are.

On the 23rd of September, when offered the chance to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, the President of the United States explicitly refused unless he deemed the election to be fair.

If the vote is conducted fairly, “There won’t be a transferal,” he said. “There will be continuation.”

This is the logical equivalent of, If I do not win, then we will know the vote was rigged. Therefore, if I do not win, I reserve the right to hold on to power, with force, if necessary.

Donald Trump was explicitly threatening to betray the honored principle of the peaceful transfer of power of our great nation, a principle that has distinguished the United States from despotic tyrannies and dictatorships for over two hundred years.

Donald Trump was explicitly threatening to demolish the very pillar of our Constitutional Republic, a republic that upwards of one million men and women have given their lives to support and defend.

Today, Donald Trump is making good on those threats. Donald Trump is staging a coup while masquerading as a defender of election integrity. We know this because he told us this was his plan all along.

We are witnessing the chilling purge of those in the executive branch who might oppose, or even attempt to slow his coup. We are witnessing the sitting president baselessly undermining our confidence in our democratic institutions, without regard to the damage he is doing to our nation. We are witnessing the installation of a gang of loyalists at the highest levels of our national security apparatus. Think of that.

Today, will you put our nation first? Will you disavow your support of this attempted coup and denounce its leader? Will you affirm your own confidence in The Constitution and in our democratic institutions? Will you reach across the aisle for the good of America? Will you find a way, through legislation or through your words, to end this debacle now, and to allow the nation to begin to heal?

It’s not too late to honor our nation’s great heritage.

It’s not too late to honor those who gave their lives to preserve your freedoms.

It’s not too late to do the right thing.

But it soon may be.