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** The Constitution Can’t Protect You If You Don’t Protect It
By John & Nisha Whitehead
September 15, 2026
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“What if the rights and principles guaranteed in the Constitution have been so distorted in the past 200 years as to be unrecognizable by the Founders? What if the government was the reason we don’t have a Constitution anymore? What if freedom’s greatest hour of danger is now? ([link removed]) ”—Andrew P. Napolitano

What’s the point in celebrating the Constitution one day a year if we permit the government to violate it the other 364?

September 17 marks the anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution, a document designed not merely to establish a government but to restrain it.

Yet restraint is in increasingly short supply.

Across the political spectrum, Americans continue to tolerate abuses of power so long as those abuses are carried out by the “right” people, against the “wrong” people, or in the name of some emergency deemed too important to question.

That is how constitutional government dies.

Not all at once. Not with the Constitution formally abolished or the Bill of Rights ripped from the National Archives.

It dies by degrees: through executive power that expands while congressional authority withers; emergency powers that never quite disappear; wars waged with little regard for constitutional restraints; surveillance systems capable of tracking whole populations; federal agents empowered to operate with ever less accountability; military forces normalized on American streets; and courts that too often allow questions of standing, immunity and procedure to determine whether unconstitutional conduct will ever be confronted on its merits.

Every such precedent makes the next abuse easier. Every exception becomes a justification. Every temporary power becomes harder to claw back.

And every time Americans excuse an unconstitutional act because they approve of the person wielding the power, they help dismantle another guardrail meant to protect them when someone they distrust eventually takes control.

That is the danger we face.
MAKE THE GOVERNMENT PLAY BY THE RULES OF THE CONSTITUTION ([link removed])

The Constitution was never intended to depend upon the goodwill of those in power.

Quite the opposite.

Those who drafted the Constitution understood that power corrupts, that governments inevitably seek more authority, and that liberty survives only when power is divided, constrained, challenged and made answerable to the people.

The Constitution creates friction intentionally.

It makes government stop and obtain a warrant. It makes prosecutors prove their case. It makes presidents answer to Congress. It makes the military subordinate to civilian government. It protects unpopular speech precisely when those in power most want it silenced. It recognizes that there are places government simply has no legitimate authority to go.

Yet one by one, those restraints have been weakened, bypassed or treated as antiquated obstacles to efficient government.

Consider how quickly the extraordinary becomes ordinary.

Troops deployed to the nation’s capital in response to a supposed crime emergency remain long after the so-called emergency has passed, with the Pentagon preparing for the National Guard presence to continue ([link removed]) through the end of President Trump’s term.

Sweeping surveillance technologies ([link removed]) enable police to identify and track people based not on individualized suspicion but merely on where their cell phones happened to be at a particular time.

Federal immigration agents have been given unprecedented resources and authority while allegations mount ([link removed]) of excessive force, unlawful arrests, surveillance, intimidation and constitutional violations.

Presidents increasingly invoke emergencies, national security and expansive interpretations of executive authority to do what once would have required meaningful congressional participation.

Meanwhile, the constitutional mechanisms intended to restrain government often operate too slowly—or not at all.

By the time the courts decide whether the government overstepped its authority, the deed may already be done, the troops already deployed, the people already detained, the data already collected, the building already demolished, the war already underway.

That is government unchained.

Here is the uncomfortable truth: the government did not accomplish this alone.

The power of the police state depends upon a populace willing to tolerate it.

Remember: when it comes to the staggering loss of civil liberties, the Constitution hasn’t changed. Rather, it is the American people who have changed.

Too many Americans have come to view constitutional restraints not as protections against tyranny but as inconveniences that stand in the way of getting what they want.

If a president they support circumvents Congress, they call it leadership. If a president they oppose does the same thing, they call it tyranny.

If government censorship silences their opponents, they cheer. If the machinery turns against them, they suddenly rediscover the First Amendment.

If federal agents abuse people they regard as dangerous, criminal or undesirable, constitutional niceties seem unnecessary. If they become the target, they demand due process.

This is how freedom becomes partisan. It is also how freedom dies.

The Constitution is neutral when it comes to politics.

It does not recognize Republican rights and Democratic rights, conservative freedoms and liberal freedoms, rights for citizens we approve of and lesser protections for those we fear or dislike.

The Fourth Amendment does not ask how you voted before protecting you against unreasonable searches. The First Amendment does not require that your speech be popular. Due process does not exist only for sympathetic defendants. Religious freedom does not belong exclusively to Christians, Jews, Muslims or any other favored faith. And the separation of powers was not written merely to restrain presidents from the opposing political party.

These safeguards exist because power cannot be trusted.

The greatest threat to constitutional government may not be that Americans have stopped believing in rights. It is that too many now believe rights should depend on whose rights are at stake.

That lesson should have been reinforced over the past 25 years.

In the name of national security after 9/11, Americans accepted sweeping surveillance powers, secret watchlists, militarized policing and an expanding government infrastructure capable of tracking and monitoring ordinary people.

What began as extraordinary powers aimed at terrorism became part of the machinery of everyday government.

In fact, technology has made it possible for government to exercise powers of surveillance and control that the architects of the Constitution could never have imagined.

Yet there are also reminders that constitutional resistance still matters.

This summer, the U.S. Supreme Court held that police conduct a Fourth Amendment “search” when they obtain historical cell phone location data through a geofence warrant ([link removed]) —a significant check on a form of digital dragnet surveillance capable of turning anyone carrying a smartphone into a government suspect.

A federal appeals court also upheld restrictions on immigration raids at certain houses of worship ([link removed]) after religious communities demonstrated that the threat of enforcement was driving worshippers away and disrupting religious practice.

Most recently, a 7-2 Supreme Court rejected President Trump’s attempt to restrict mail-in ballots ([link removed]) in advance of the 2026 midterm elections.

These victories matter.

They remind us that constitutional government is not entirely lost.

They also remind us of something even more important: rights have meaning only when somebody is willing to assert them. They survive when a homeowner refuses an unlawful search, when a citizen records police misconduct, when a congregation challenges government interference, when a parent questions what information a school is collecting about a child, or when a community forces officials to justify their actions in public.
YOUR SUPPORT HELPS THE RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE SOUND THE ALARM OVER THREATS TO OUR FREEDOMS: DONATE TODAY ([link removed])

You have no rights unless you exercise them. And you cannot exercise your rights unless you know what those rights are.

That should concern us because civic ignorance has become a national epidemic.

Too many Americans cannot identify the basic protections contained in the Bill of Rights, explain the separation of powers, or understand why the Founders deliberately made it difficult for any one branch of government to act without checks and balances.

According to the 2026 Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center, over a third of U.S. adults (35%) cannot name all three branches of the government ([link removed]) and under half can name four of the five rights protected by the First Amendment. Of the five First Amendment rights, only freedom of speech is identified by more than half of survey respondents.

That ignorance has consequences.

A people who do not understand why government power must be limited will eventually surrender those limits whenever fear, anger, convenience or political loyalty makes them seem burdensome.

Thomas Jefferson understood the danger: a nation cannot expect to be both ignorant and free.

Those who gave us the Constitution understood something else as well: liberty cannot be preserved by politicians alone.

It was no idle happenstance that the Constitution begins with three powerful words: “We the People.”

The government exists at the behest of the citizenry, not the other way around.

That means “We the People” have responsibilities that extend far beyond showing up at the polls every few years.

Voting is not enough.

Freedom requires participation. It requires knowing your rights and exercising them. It requires speaking out even when it is unpopular to do so.

It requires demanding warrants, challenging government surveillance, recording police activity where the law allows, serving on juries, attending local government meetings, questioning officials, filing public records requests, supporting constitutional challenges, teaching children their rights, and refusing to let political loyalty override constitutional principle.

It means insisting that Congress act like a separate branch of government rather than a presidential cheering section. It means demanding that courts provide meaningful constitutional remedies while there is still something left to remedy.

It means refusing to allow emergency powers to become ordinary powers. And it means opposing unconstitutional government power even when that power is wielded by politicians we support.

None of this is easy.

Representative government is hard work.

It requires a citizenry willing to stay informed, resist manipulation, question authority, and accept that constitutional limits may sometimes prevent government from easily doing things we might want it to do.

That inconvenience is the point.

The Constitution was designed to make tyranny difficult. As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People ([link removed]) and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries ([link removed]) , our job is to make sure it stays that way.

So get outraged. Get informed. Get involved.

Get down to your local city council and school board. Get your objections down on paper. Get your representatives to pay attention. Get your children to know their rights. Get your local police to honor the Constitution. Get your media to act as watchdogs for the people rather than lapdogs for those in power.

Most of all, stop waiting for someone else to save the republic.

The courts cannot do it alone. Congress will not do it for us. No president, political party or election will permanently safeguard freedoms that the people themselves are unwilling to defend.

The Constitution is not self-executing.

Its words have power only when “We the People” breathe life into them.

Know your rights. Exercise your rights. Defend your rights.

If not, you will lose them.

The Constitution can’t protect you if you don’t protect it.

WC: 1803

Source: [link removed]
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ABOUT JOHN & NISHA WHITEHEAD

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His latest books The Erik Blair Diaries ([link removed]) and Battlefield America: The War on the American People ([link removed]) are available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

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