Enemies, Foreign and Domestic: The Constitution Under Siege

America’s Founding Document Is Under Attack — And Only We Can Save It

Sep 17, 2025

By Dr. John Petrone

Today is Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, marking the signing of the United States Constitution in 1787. On this day, we usually pause to honor the genius of that document — its framework of checks and balances, its insistence on limited government, its protections of liberty.

But this year, Constitution Day and Citizenship Day cannot be treated as just another historical commemoration. Because the very document that anchors our Republic is under coordinated assault from within. And the threat is not theoretical — it’s organized, funded, and being actively weaponized against the American people.

The Attackers of the Constitution

What we are witnessing today is a deliberate campaign by the extreme Right — led by Donald Trump, his loyalists, and architects like Stephen Miller and Russell Vought, working under the blueprint of Project 2025.

Their goals are not hidden:

To gut checks and balances by concentrating unprecedented power in the presidency.
To politicize the courts and bend judicial independence to partisan aims.
To undermine fundamental rights, from voting access to freedom of expression to protections for minority groups.
To replace constitutional governance with authoritarian rule, eroding the institutions designed to stop exactly that.

As our Founding Fathers warned more than two centuries ago:

“A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.”-Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 27

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey

These warnings were not meant for another age — they were meant for ours.

Why I Swore an Oath

When I joined the United States Air Force, I raised my right hand and swore an oath: to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

That oath was not to a political party. It was not to a president. It was not to a flag-waving slogan. It was to the Constitution itself — the foundation of our freedoms, the rule of law, and the idea of America as a democratic republic.

And here is what too many forget: that oath has no expiration date. Every veteran, every public servant, every elected official who has ever spoken those words carries a lifelong responsibility.

So when I speak out against Trump, Miller, Vought, and the machinery of Project 2025, I am not doing it as a partisan. I am doing it as someone who once wore the uniform of this nation and took that sacred oath.

What’s at Stake

The Constitution is more than parchment locked in a display case. It is a living guardrail meant to prevent any leader from claiming unchecked power.

But that guardrail is already being dismantled. Under Project 2025 and its advocates, we are watching in real time as:

Elections are manipulated through gerrymanders, voter suppression, and executive meddling.
Civil liberties are curtailed under the guise of “order” or “national security.”
Congress is sidelined, reduced to rubber-stamping presidential directives instead of holding the executive accountable.
Courts are stacked with ideologues whose purpose is not to interpret the law, but to entrench power.

With each of these pillars eroded, the Constitution is transformed into a hollow shell — still invoked in speeches, but stripped of its substance in practice.

As George Washington cautioned in his Farewell Address, “The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.”

How We Fight Back

Defending the Constitution is not passive work. It demands vigilance, courage, and collective action. As Samuel Adams warned in 1775, “No people will tamely surrender their liberties… when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved… when people become universally ignorant and corrupt, they are ripe for a master and such a master will certainly appear.”

On this Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, here is what every one of us can and must do:

Educate Relentlessly as a U.S Citizen
Don’t take constitutional literacy for granted. Read it. Share it. Teach your kids, your neighbors, your friends. Know exactly what protections exist — so when politicians try to twist or ignore them, we can call it out.
Expose the Blueprint
Project 2025 is not a rumor — it is a 900-page published plan for dismantling the federal government as we know it. Read it. Cite it. Share the passages that prove their intent.
Organize Locally
Defending the Constitution is not only a fight in Washington. It happens in school boards, city councils, and state legislatures. Build networks. Attend meetings. Demand accountability.
Vote with Vigilance
Every ballot cast is a defense of the Constitution. Register. Double-check deadlines. Bring a friend to the polls. Do not assume others will carry the load — democracy only works when enough of us show up to protect it.
Hold Leaders Accountable
Push representatives — from Congress down to county clerks — to honor their oath. Flood their offices with calls and letters. Ask the constitutional question: “Does this action uphold the oath you swore?” Force them to answer, in public and on record.
Stand in Solidarity
When rights are stripped from one group, all of us are weakened. The Constitution is indivisible. We defend it not only when our own freedoms are threatened, but when anyone’s are.

The Meaning of Constitution Day and Citizenship Day in 2025

Constitution Day and Citizenship Day should not be reduced to a civics footnote. It is a reminder that the freedoms we celebrate can be lost if we fail to defend them.

Today, while Trump and his sycophants plot to hollow out the system, we must be louder, bolder, and more united in our defense of it.

I swore an oath to defend this document against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That oath still binds me. And it must bind all of us who believe in the promise of America. As Benjamin Franklin warned at the birth of this nation, we were given “a republic, if you can keep it.”

George Washington later echoed the same truth in his First Annual Message to Congress in 1790: “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” By “republican,” Washington meant representative self-government — the very system we are called to defend today.

Let us use this Constitution Day and Citizenship Day not just to remember history, but to make a choice: Will we allow the most dangerous authoritarian project in modern American history to succeed, or will we stand together and stop it?