A civic prayer and promise

The peril before us is real, and the duty to confront it is absolute.

People across this nation feel the weight of uncertainty, of fear, of exhaustion. Each generation faces a trial that defines the ethic of their age. Ours is the fight for freedom against the growing shadow of tyranny, cast in the likeness of one man but now deeply entrenched within a movement. The promise of America, and the cause of liberty for which she stands, is being tested.

A solemn duty now rests upon our shoulders, as citizens of the greatest nation on earth, to do everything we can to support and defend our Constitution, preserve the rule of law, and ensure that our institutions hold. The peril before us is real, and the duty to confront it is absolute.

Now is the time to summon our better angels.

Already, we have seen the heavy hand of tyranny move swiftly. Within hours of taking the oath of office, the President once again desecrated the most sacred tradition of free people—the peaceful transition of power—by pardoning those who sought to overturn it. They stormed the heart of our democracy at his urging, and now they walk free, emboldened, triumphant.

But his work of villainy did not stop there. The administration has announced plans to expand detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay—not for terrorists, but for migrants seeking asylum. Up to 30,000 people, including families and children, will be held in the very same facility that once stood as a global symbol of indefinite detention and torture. When pressed on whether women and children would be imprisoned there, the President’s advisers refused to answer. A prison camp, a stain upon our conscience, is now being resurrected—not in the name of security, but in the service of cruelty.

The innocent are cast aside, the vulnerable are condemned. A president, armed with the instruments of state, now wields them against the weary and the poor, against the huddled masses who seek nothing but the dignity of honest work and the right to live without fear. He would strip them of the dignity they are bestowed by God. If this is not evil, what is?

As he strikes at the weak, he also punishes the just. Men and women of law, servants of the public good, defenders of order—they have been cast out, dismissed, purged for their courage in upholding the Constitution. Federal prosecutors who led the most consequential criminal cases against January 6th rioters have been dismissed. The lead U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., overseeing hundreds of convictions, was fired without warning. FBI agents investigating domestic extremism have been forced out in a single act of retribution. The message is clear: loyalty to the Constitution is no longer enough—you must serve him.

We stand, therefore, upon the precipice. This is the hour we feared, the crisis we foresaw. The abyss of corruption and lawlessness stretches before us. And yet, my friends—despair is not our lot.

We do not shrink from this fight. We do not cower before the storm. The forces arrayed against us would have us yield, would have us submit, would have us bow our heads and accept, with weary resignation, the slow decay of our republic. But that is not our way.

No, we will not retreat. We will not falter. Let this moment, grim though it is, serve as the anvil upon which our resolve is forged anew. We have entered a time of struggle, and struggle we shall. The opening salvo of the first hundred days of this presidency have been a whirlwind of destruction—but we will endure them. The years ahead will test us, but we will outlast them.

For we are the inheritors of a noble tradition. The flame of democracy has burned in this land for generations, tended by the hands of patriots, strengthened by the toil of free men and women who knew that liberty, once surrendered, is seldom reclaimed. We will not be the generation that allows that flame to gutter and die.

And so, we shall fight on. In the halls of government, in the courts of law, in the public square, and in the hearts of our people, we will make our stand. We will speak the truth when lies abound. We will defend the Constitution when others defile it. We will preserve the rule of law when those in power seek to unravel it.

Our purpose is clear: to be the leaders our democracy requires. To rally those who believe, as we do, that America’s finest days are still before her—not behind.

For leadership is not merely the preserve of the powerful. It is the calling of all who see further than themselves, who look beyond the moment, beyond the confines of today, to the great work of shaping tomorrow. We live in an age where too many with power lack vision, and too many with vision lack power. It is time to change that.

Each generation faces its test. Ours is upon us now. We did not choose it, but it has chosen us. We may wish for easier days, for lighter burdens—but history grants such wishes to no one. Instead, it calls upon the willing, the determined, the steadfast.

So let us answer that call. Let us not waste our energy mourning what has passed but rather commit ourselves wholly to what is yet to come. If our adversaries would seek to strip us of hope, let them be confounded. If they believe they have vanquished the spirit of the free, let them be proven wrong.

For we are not naïve. We do not underestimate the magnitude of the challenge before us. But neither do we surrender. We are fortified not by anger, but by hope—unyielding, unbreakable, and unbowed.

And if there are those who doubt the resilience of the American spirit, let them recall these words, spoken in the darkest days of another test for civilization, by President Lincoln’s own Secretary of State, William Seward:

"There was always just enough virtue in this republic to save it; sometimes none to spare, but still enough to meet the emergency."

May we be that virtue. May we be that strength. And may we be that salvation.

For the fight is not yet done. The future is not yet written. And we will prevail.

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Few images capture the American spirit like The Bronco Buster, Frederic Remington’s iconic sculpture of the West, embodying the raw energy, resilience, and untamed freedom that define our nation’s frontier ethos. A tribute to those who refuse to be broken, it was embraced by leaders like Theodore Roosevelt as a symbol of individual grit and defiance.

Like the bronco buster battling for control, Mavericks rise to meet today’s challenges—facing down authoritarianism, corruption, and civic decay with unyielding courage.

I invite you to join this community of people who know the struggle is never easy, but those who embrace it shape the future.

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A personal note

I am grateful for the opportunity to join the Karsh Institute of Democracy at the University of Virginia as a Democracy Practitioner Fellow. My mission is clear: to study, to strengthen, and to uphold the leadership our democracy needs in this pivotal moment. I look forward to working alongside those who share the conviction that our country’s future is still ours to shape—and that the promise of America is not something of the past, but something we must continue to build.