“I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic… I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same… I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion…” Serious words, they form the basis of the oath taken by Members of Congress at the beginning of each new term. Not a word salad, not with fingers crossed behind their backs, but a solemn commitment to uphold the rule of law in the United States of America, and in front of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of witnesses. The oath is a rite of passage, from private citizen to public servant. I took a similar oath seven times, after each election to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, and always felt the weight of the responsibility of those words as I recited them.

The immediate reactions of elected Republican Members of Congress to the unanimous “guilty” verdict on 34 felony counts in the New York trial of Donald J. Trump were expected politically. They didn’t like the verdicts. Their subsequent attacks on the Constitution and rule of law – calling evidence “hogwash,” jurors “supposedly Americans,” the judge “dishonest,’ the trial a “sham” and a “kangaroo court” – are assaults on the bedrock of our democracy, and undeniably dangerous to the future of our nation. When lawmakers assail the very laws that they swore to uphold and defend, they also are violating the hallowed oath of office they took upon assuming office.

Democracy under attack is nothing new; attacks are part of our nation’s history. However, attacks on democracy by a major American political party are unprecedented. Democracy is not monolithic; it thrives when there is a variety of approaches and options available to all parts of society. That’s the beauty of democracy. Your idea of democracy may differ from your neighbor, but there is enough space in democracy to accommodate everyone, a “big tent” if you will.

That’s the way it should be, but we don’t live in a perfect world. Sadly, we seem to be defined by red or blue, not by red, white, and blue, and the American flag, and patriotism, seem to have been hijacked by the Republican Party. The American flag flies over all, not just some. Democrats need to remind Democratic, Republican, and independent voters of that basic tenet, again and again and again, not only this November’s federal election, but in all elections, at the state level, the municipal level, and especially the school board level.

Civics education is a good place to start. Civics and history curricula have diminished over the years or have been rewritten to reflect the current political atmosphere. Even the story of George Washington, whose historic home, Mount Vernon, is a popular Fairfax County tourist attraction, has faded. In 1898, a Minnesota teacher asked 1440 teenagers which famous person they would most like to be like. The overwhelming answer for a male hero was George Washington (female hero was Helen Keller’s teacher Anne Sullivan Macy). Life magazine did a similar poll in 1950, and the male hero was General Douglas MacArthur (female was Florence Nightingale). In 1998, the magazine asked teenagers again, and the response was basketball great Michael Jordan (female was Jennifer Love Hewitt). No government or military leaders were in the top ten answers; sports and entertainment figures carried the day.

Democracy is fragile and needs the support of all to continue the extraordinary experiment begun almost 250 years ago. We should insist that our elected leaders, regardless of political party, live up their oaths of office to support and defend our Constitution. Coincidentally, that’s what thousands of American soldiers did eighty years ago today, on D-Day in Normandy in 1944.