As we witness President Trump’s daily attacks on the rule of law, constitutional rights and democracy, I recall an incident from 1964, the year I graduated high school.

In the early morning hours of Mar. 13, 28-year-old Kitty Genovese was raped and stabbed to death outside her apartment building in Queens.  The New York Times reported later that nearly 40 people saw or heard the attack but did nothing to stop it. It shocked the nation that no one had the courage to intervene. Psychologists called it the “bystander effect.”

Whether or not this account is entirely accurate, it provides an apt analogy to what we are witnessing today, as a criminal president and his allies assault our republic. The elected leaders and institutions assigned to defend us stand by and watch travesty after travesty, as though helpless to stop it.

Those of us who have served in the military — and especially those who have been in combat — may be especially sensitive to the experience of leaders and fellow citizens freezing in the face of attack. We delegate the defense of freedom to warriors. We expect them to risk their lives against foreign threats.

However, those warriors count on the people back home to do their part against domestic tyrants who subvert democracy, take away freedoms, destroy........

© The Hill