(Editor’s note: Below is a condensed version of a speech Gene Nichol gave last Saturday afternoon (June 14) at the North Carolina State Capitol as part of the “No Kings” protests. He gave a similar talk that morning to the Rowan County Democratic Party in Salisbury.) 

By Gene Nichol

No kings. No George III. No limitless power. As the Declaration of Independence said, it is our duty “to throw off” government “of absolute despotism” — the kind Donald Trump lusts for. And that his Republican accomplices seek to abet. We believe, still, in a government of laws, not men. Democracy through consent of the governed — of, by, and for the people. We part company with Donald Trump.

Never in our history has a human posed such a threat to American democracy as that lodged by Trump. Not anywhere, anytime. It would be a life’s work to rank his transgressions. He instigated a violent coup against the lawful government of the nation; and then issued pardons to 1,500 convicts who followed his brutal call. He executed a purge of Justice Department officers who successfully prosecuted his fellow coup participants. He demanded, on tape, like a mafia thug, that Georgia’s Secretary of State steal 11,000 votes to fraudulently overturn the 2020 election. He required an entire political party to avow, in undeniable falsity, that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen.” The Republican Party agreed in disqualifying submission.

The first day of his second term, he issued an executive order attempting to override the 14^th Amendment. He then unleashed the richest man in the world, without authority, legality or accountability, to single-handedly dismantle much of the federal government — sacrificing, particularly, the plight of the poorest people on earth. Gloating over their suffering and deaths.

He threatened to invade Greenland, Panama, Mexico and Canada like a mad, 18^th century imperialist monarch. His secretary of defense reiterated the threat to Greenland a week ago. He has made our nation embrace the theory so detested by the framers, that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Nothing could be more un-American. He has made us an anathema to democracies and a friend to tyrants across the globe. We have shown our allies no commitment to honor, to decency, to the courage that has defined our national character. He has no informed understanding of what America is.

His administration has violated the constitution with impunity and refused to follow orders of the Supreme Court. He has instituted a police state where residents are seized on the streets, in their homes and places of work, their schools, their churches without a shred of process, and are summarily shipped to foreign lands never to be heard from again. Casting a pall of fear across the land that is foreign to Americans. He uses violence and menace to try to intimidate senators, congressmen and judges — saying, in effect, bow down before me or I’ll make things even worse for you. He has deployed the military in cities of the United States as if it were his personal strike force.

He has created a regime of open corruption never approached in this country. He governs through a reign of terror and extortion that demands control of every component of American life — the press, universities, law firms, corporations, non-profits, local and state governments — nothing, he believes, is beyond his control. No one has a record to match this. Aaron Burr, Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest were many things. But none was president of the U.S. Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to American democracy. As are his Republican henchmen, in Raleigh, in Washington — our massive sedition caucus.

In 1861, Ulysses S. Grant said: “I have but one sentiment now, that we have a government of laws that must be sustained. There are but two parties now, traitors and patriots.” Traitors and patriots.

Gene Nichol is a professor of law teaching courses in the constitution and federal courts at the University of North Carolina School of Law.