Don’t give up on the American Republic
They want you to give up. Instead, give 'em hell.
As we settle into 2026, we reflect on the muted New Year’s celebrations we experienced: people seemed happy to put 2025 behind them, but trepidatious about what this year would bring. And we couldn’t blame anyone for their lack of enthusiasm. While not everything about 2025 was bad, it was a blockbuster year for Project 2025 and a dire year for the American Republic.
Since returning to office, the president has acted exactly how you might expect of someone who tried to overthrow his own government.
Congressional Republicans, with a handful of occasional exceptions, have capitulated. Their spinelessness enabled a breakdown of our Constitutional balance of powers. No more is Congress fulfilling its constitutional duty to decide taxes and spending, to declare war, to create or eliminate government agencies. This Congress instead issues simpering homages to the would-be king as he assumes their powers. Meanwhile, they keep failing to keep the government up and running–after the last record-breaking shutdown, it is still only funded through the end of January.
The Supreme Court is also complicit, giving the president immunity from prosecution and greatly expanding his power. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson observed in one dissent, “Perhaps the degradation of our rule-of-law regime would happen anyway. But this Court’s complicity in the creation of a culture of disdain for lower courts, their rulings, and the law (as they interpret it) will surely hasten the downfall of our governing institutions, enabling our collective demise.”
Here in Iowa, our state government has been eagerly awful. The Republican government has tanked the state budget, given the wealthy hundreds of millions of tax dollars for private school tuition, and seemingly given up on following regular order.
But there were bright spots in 2025, too.
Below the Supreme Court, the justice system is largely holding the line. Judges are demanding evidence and due process. Political prosecutions are foundering. Grand juries are rejecting trumped-up charges leveled against protesters, even those armed with dangerous sandwiches.
The military has also remained apolitical. When, after firing many, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called together the nation’s generals on short notice, many feared he would demand a Nazi-style loyalty oath. Instead, he complained about beards and “fat” officers. (But don’t be complacent: the operations in Venezuela are a step towards conditioning the military to obey orders that are questionably legal at best.)
And while conservative state governments are sometimes kowtowing to the “crown,” there are limits: while Iowa was surrendering its state sovereignty and its residents’ privacy by sharing sensitive data with the federal government, several Republican states rejected calls for redistricting. Indiana is the most notable of those, where Republican lawmakers overwhelmingly rejected redistricting despite pressure from the president and the accompanying violent threats.
And even in Iowa, some good things might finally be coming. Our politicians seem, at long last, to be acknowledging our water quality problems, and they actually passed eminent domain reform–even though Governor Reynolds ultimately vetoed it.
The brightest spot of all is that the American people are not taking this lying down. The “No Kings” protests were among the largest in US history. Special election voters have loudly signaled their disapproval. People have been pushing back against ICE kidnappings, causing scenes and trying to make America again a place where people are not “disappeared” from our streets and stores.
And even as partisan as things are, no one likes pedophiles. Trump’s ongoing protection of the Epstein files was too much for some Congressional Republicans. After defying him there, they now seem likely to overturn his first vetoes of this term. We can only hope they remember that he’s a lame duck and make independence a habit.
So even when it all seems to be going down the drain, don’t give up. Give your representatives an earful. Show up. Shame them. Pay attention. America’s enemies–foreign and domestic–want you to give up. Instead, give ‘em hell.
Kelcey Patrick-Ferree and Shannon Patrick live in Iowa.
Originally published in the Press-Citizen on January 10, 2026.