During the transfer of power from a legitimate to illegitimate rule, the illegitimate power must maintain an illusion. It must maintain a belief in the persistence of legitimacy, running through the transfer and to the new regime. If this illusion is broken, the people become aware that their power has been usurped, a pretender has taken power, and the new authority lacks the legitimacy to rule.

To justify the illegal federalization of the national guard, Donald Trump cited 10 U.S. Code § 252:

“Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.”

In doing so, he highlighted a contradiction within his justification. The specific justification was that the protests “make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States.”

After years of voicing support and meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian agents hack the Democratic Party and spend two years manipulating social media. After directly coordinating with Trump and his collaborators, the Russian government again hacks the Democratic party and escalates their social media manipulation campaign. When Trump is elected, he appoints Russian government assets to government offices. Before even taking the oath of office, Donald Trump begins violating the Emoluments Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

The power of the federal government to enforce the law had been under attack for years. President Nixon was impeached for his attempt to subvert the electoral process, but the actions he took to forward his party's objectives were never reversed. President Reagan illegally bribed Iran with weapons to sabotage the hostage negotiations then under way with president Carter, in another clear case of illegal election tampering. Yet his presidency was never challenged, nor were any of his actions or appointments challenged or reversed. Post concession recounts showed clearly that President George W. Bush lost in 2000 to Al Gore, despite Gore's concession.

Russia understood how to exploit this power to take over the American government. While the federal government struggled to enforce constitutional protections before 2016, Trump's appointment of 3 Supreme Court Justices ultimately destroyed all ability to enforce any constitutional limitations on presidential power.

Given that the power of all officials in United States is explicitly limited by the law and no people are excluded from said legal constraint, one element of the legal definition of insurrection is the inability to enforce laws, the Constitution and all laws restricting presidential power has not been possible to enforce since Trump took office in 2016, Therefore Donald Trump is leading an insurrection on behalf of the government of Russia, has levyed war against the United States, on behalf of the Vladiamir Putin, the government of Russia successfully overthrow the US government in 2016 using Donald Trump as a proxy, There is currently no legal president. Given that Trump appointed officials to illegally maintain his power Trump selected collaborators to forward his illegal agenda Trump acted at the direction of Vladamir Putin as an agent of the Russian Government, Therefore all appointees and collaborators are equally participants in a successful foreign war against the US government. Given That a war need not be declared to be enacted, to overthrow a government on behalf of a foreign power is always, necessarily, an act of war by that foreign power, Therefore the Russian election interference that allowed Donald Trump to take power was necessarily an act of war against the American People.

Be it resolved that Donald Trump is not the legal president of the United States, and never has been legally the president, the last legal president of the United States was Barak Obama, Donald Trump is a traitor who levied war against the American People on behalf of Russia, Donald Trump must be tried for treason, all appointments made by Donald Trump since his election are necessarily null and void, all laws ratified by Trump are null and void, all land and property sold will be repossessed by the Federal Government as stolen property all land that cannot be repossessed or for which repossession is not pursued by the US government will return to the domain of it's previous authority, all executive orders enacted by Trump are null and void, all appointees and collaborators who interfered with the dutiful enforcement of constitutional restrictions of presidential power must also be tried for treason, a new president must be identified following the 25th Amendment process of succession. Any president who takes office must first execute these resolutions. If the president does not follow the above resolutions for any reason, succession will pass to the next in line who does.

Be it resolved that additional steps must be taken to address the vulnerabilities exploited by the Russian government. These steps are abolish the electoral college and elect presidents directly by vote count remove all judges appointed by Donald Trump remove all other Trump political appointees replace the Senate, as a body that represents each state with two members, with a legislative body that represents the nation by party-based proportional representation, all government elections, at all levels, for which a only a single candidate can be chosen must then use ranked choice voting, universal suffrage for all residents over the age of 18, regardless criminal or legal status, the constitutional definition of treason will be amended to include voter suppression and those who have been convicted of voter suppression will be classified as insurrections for the purpose of holding office, corporations will explicitly be not be recognized as people with constitutional protections

States that pass these resolutions will hold the Federal Government responsible for enacting it within 90 days of passage within the state, or, the Federal Government failing to do so, will secede from the conquered union and form amongst themselves a new union carrying on from the fallen state with vulnerabilities addressed.

I put the notebook down on my desk and let out a long sigh. The look I gave her only lasted a few moments but felt as though it drew on for days, “I think you mean 'Whereas' rather than 'Given That,' just stylistically I mean.”

“You know that's not what we're asking for.”

Straight to the point, always the spitfire.

“Sure. Yeah…. you could go farther. Why don't you nationalize the military industrial complex, make college free, abolish all debt, and summarily execute Thiel and Yarvin while you're at it?”

Her eyes cauterized as they cut.

“OK,” I replied carefully, with another long sigh, “I don't even want to be holding it right now. Do you have any idea how dangerous something like this is? I don't even know how much of this is legal right now.”

She flashed a wide joker's smile, “Shouldn't you?”

We always had good rapport, perhaps that's why she trusted me with this.

“High school teachers aren't known for their law degrees.”

“It doesn't matter. What's legal and what's not doesn't even matter anymore. Anything he doesn't like is illegal. Anything that brings him more power is. The whole system simply serves power now, and that's why this is so important right now.”

I crossed my arms, “I said this about W. It's different now, but in quantity not quality… You were in elementary school when he first took office…“

I nodded at the menacing portrait of Our Leader glaring down at us. I could feel the grey hairs sprout as I trailed off. Every year under him had felt like 10, and I was already old enough without the help.

She got up and leaned across the table, “A constitution is a contract between the people and their government. It grants the government the monopoly on violence and the license to define and enforce those laws using said violence. However, the violation of that contract without mitigation or redress nullifies it. Without this authority, the perpetrators of violence are little more than petty tyrants. The violation of this contract authorizes the people to redress their own grievances against those who illegitimately wield authority in the their name.”

Two other students were in the room. One sat leisurely at his desk, the other curled up in the window sill. The one in the window sill wore a studded leather jacket a size too big. The leather squeaked a bit against the window as they leaned forward, “You almost sound like one of those slavers who wrote the original.”

“Dee,” I remarked as I held up my hand and he smiled a bit, “let's stay focused, please.”

“This,” I continued hesitantly, “can't be a citizens initiative. This lays out the legal basis for a civil war. Do you have any idea how dangerous this is right now?”

“Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to keep going like this?” She stared with amber pools of rage, “We should actually be able to vote on this. When I finally get to vote, I know for a fact that it won't mean anything. At least you got to choose between two puppets, we don't even get that. He's looting everything he can and leaving corporations to steal our futures.

“You act like there isn't already a civil war going on right now,” she raged on, “You act like there hasn't been a civil war since before he even took office.”

“If anyone found out you wrote this, you could be arrested. Your family could be arrested.”

She smiled a bit, “'For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.'”

“You could be sent to the camps.”

”'He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws.' But who would he send to arrest us again?”

I sighed deeply and sat back in my chair.

She pointed out the window at a group of troops outside, “'He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.'”

I tapped a pencil on the desk and thought for a moment. Her curls bounced as she sat back down. After a long pause, I spoke again, ““Even if I wanted to, I couldn't submit this. I couldn't ask for signatures. Someone would probably kill me before I was even able to collect enough signatures if I tried. It will be censored by the algorithm. We would all be arrested immediately. What do you expect me to do with this?”

“I don't care if we're arrested. We're going to die anyway. It's probably already too late for most of us. 'It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees'”

I hadn't noticed the Che Guevara shirt she had been wearing, nor did I realize those were back in style. She wore the uniform of a young radical. I wonder if she will also look back at that shirt and cringe. Then it struck me, I wonder if there will be a world for her to look back from.

The studs tapped against the window a bit as the student in the window sill shifted again and spoke up, “Enlightenment thinkers dogged censorship by presenting their ideas as stories and dialogs. You can never really tell what side someone is taking in fiction. The 'savage critic' was one of the most popular literary modes of the period.”

I looked over to the window, “You've been reading Graber again, haven't you?”

They smiled a bit and and settled back in.

“What are you even doing with something like this? Aren't you an anarchist Dee?”

“Yeah, aren't you Mr. Brand?”

I leaned forward a bit, “Don't say that too loud. I could loose my job. I've never talked about that for a reason.”

“You do on your Mastodon,” they replied slily.

“How do you know about my Mastodon?”

“Dee is a furry,” the curly haired girl piped up again.

“Ez,” I snapped at her, “not everyone on Mastodon is a f-”

“Mr. Brand, that's not important right now” Dee cut me off. I hadn't noticed the Kitsune Luigi shirt under the leather jacket until now. Cleaver. “I know you're a bit of a writer yourself Mr. Brand. I suppose that's expected for an English teacher.”

I sat back again as they continued, “We won't survive if this keeps going. We're cut off. The crops are rotting in the fields with no one to harvest. If we don't starve, you know we'll all die in the camps. It has to break. It has to stop. These changes will destroy both parties. We have an opportunity to not only survive, but come out the other side better.

“During the first Civil War, progressive states were able to pass a lot of legislation after the Rebel states left. This government can only collapse. If a few states pull out, it may be enough to topple everything. When the rest of the country joins the New Union, we could have jumped decades forward.

“To be honest Mr. Brand, I don't know how much time I have. You know people like me are pretty high on their list. This doesn't fix everything, not even close. But I think it gives us a fighting chance. They're not going to exterminate us all if they can't even keep the country together.”

The boy sitting leisurely at his desk adjusted his sweater and sat up. “I just want to know my parents will be safe. I want to know I'll be safe.”

Ezra leaned back in her chair again, “Honestly, I just want a chance at a future. The current road leads to death and I'll do anything to get off it. Will you help us Mr. Brand?”

I sat for several minutes and thought about the question before answering quietly, “Yeah…. I'll do my best.”