These are the remarks made by Marc Racicot at the Indivisible Helena No Kings Rally on June 14, 2025 at Flag Plaza at the capitol in Helena.
Undoing Democracy
In 1788, in an effort to support the ratification of the Constitution of the United States, Alexander Hamilton conveyed his confidence to his fellow Americans that the Constitutional Convention had “guarded against all danger of…cabal, intrigue and corruption” in the election of a president.
It’s clear, however, that Hamilton never anticipated the lawless, unconstitutional and unethical perversions of Donald Trump and his henchmen. If he had, he would never have given his assurance that treachery by an elected president, sworn to faithfully abide by the letter and virtues of the law, would be deterred by the careful balance of the proscriptions in the Constitution. Hamilton didn’t account for, or ever imagine, the chaos, the craven defiance of the Constitution, and the disgraceful betrayal of the oath of office that infect the presidency of Donald Trump.
On the 100th day of a second term in office, when asked directly if he had a mandatory duty to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, the President muttered “I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.” Absent delusion, deception, ignorance or all of the above, how could Donald Trump not know or remember when only three months prior he took the presidential oath of office and solemnly promised millions of Americans, with his hand on the Bible for the second time, that he would “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States,” and would to the best of his ability “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
It is as predictable as night following day that Donald Trump, will ignore and transgress the ethical and legal boundaries of the law and the Constitution at his whim and caprice. There is virtually no ethical obligation or moral code that guides or confines his actions, his snide accusations, his sociolopathic lies or his brutish behavior. Vengeance and extortion are his weapons of choice to enforce his demands and his only boundaries are the limits of what he wants, covets or misappropriates including, without our consent, the soul and goodness of America.
Simply put, the administration of Donald is the most ethically corrupt and tarnished in the history of the republic. Hamilton’s conviction that “the convention had guarded against all danger of this sort with the most provident and judicious attention,” turns out to be, with the dawn of Donald Trump in the White House, a pale illusion that has been shattered into a thousand pieces.
Without regret or realization, Donald Trump has soiled the presidency with incomparable regularity: unparalleled conflicts of interests, ethical breaches and repetitive lies; defiance of court orders and continual attacks on the judicial branch of government; merchandising cars on the White House lawn; auctioning off tours of the White House for support of his private interests; calling for the disassembly of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) thereby failing in his most basic duty to safeguard the American people imperiled by the destruction of disasters and destruction; and accepting a $400 million dollar luxury aircraft as a gift for his comfort and adoration in spite of untold national security and ethical prohibitions.
We have a person occupying the presidency who has argued for the “termination” of various articles of the Constitution and proposed that as president he is above the law; approved the emasculation of Congressionally mandated and essential government services; threatened the Supreme Court; suggested sending American citizens to foreign prisons; asked the Secretary of Defense, when protestors were filling the streets around the White House “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” disrupted the entire world economy, to the punishing disadvantage of the American people; unilaterally imposed an incomprehensible tariff plan that changes from moment to moment precipitating economic mayhem and chaos around world; extorted law firms in an act of retribution to provide nearly $1 billion in free legal aid to Trump Administration designees; and withdrawn billions in funding from the nation’s universities in retaliation for what he falsely claims is “widespread political bias.”
And the next slight-of-hand? Donald Trump’s shameful and misnomered “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which will bloat the national debt by trillions; cut student loans and Pell grants; take away existing allocations for Medicaid funding, mental health and food nutrition programs; transfer massive Medicaid funding requirements to the states; provide the Administration loopholes to escape contempt of court sanctions; and attempt to sell off our public lands threatening the landscape we cherish, the air we breathe and the water we drink.
“We the people” have waited too long, in the face of overwhelming evidence, to draw and act upon numerous inescapable conclusions, to stand up and to speak out. Undoubtedly, in the hearts of decent men and women, there is a certain sadness borne in the public declaration that the President of the United States, as a matter of character and capacity, is not equipped with the composure, character, compassion, competence or conscience to render the leadership so desperately needed in our country and the world today. But the evidence is inescapable and inarguably clear: Donald J Trump is not fit to serve as President of the United States.
The surreptitious consolidation of power by Donald Trump, extending his constitutionally impermissible reach to expand his executive authority into every level and matter of state and federal prerogative is an ongoing and insidious process aided and abetted by the silence of the titans of business, by those of our fellow citizens who take solace from his rude and offensive behavior and by the those Republicans in Congress who, with full knowledge of the depth and breadth of the rot in the Trump Administration, remain wholly unable to find the courage to do the right thing for the right reasons. With their silence and their vote they may avoid the wrath and rage of Donald Trump, but they also, most assuredly and inevitably, risk the demise of the Constitution, our union and our democracy.
George Washington warned us, as he left the White House for the last time, to be vigilant, that there would be “potent engines by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men would subvert the power of the people and usurp for themselves the reins of government.” If that sounds familiar, it is because that day has arrived.