The Founders of the American Republic were geniuses at creating a government that satisfied different factions while preserving liberty. It was no small task. The core disagreements boiled down to a few major fault lines, pitting large states against small states, Northern states against Southern states, and those who wanted a strong national government against those who favored state sovereignty.
While the delegates at the Constitutional Convention argued fiercely over the structure of power, representation, and slavery, they shared a fundamental, underlying agreement on one radical premise: the ultimate right of the people to alter, reform, or outright ignore and overthrow a government that violates its social contract.
This wasn't just a theoretical point; it was the very premise that justified the American Revolution and, consequently, the Convention itself.
Early Americans voted with their feet. If their local or state government became too overbearing for their liking, they moved, usually farther West. This wanderlust became part of our national character. To this day, we are the most mobile society in history, moving for better jobs, for better weather, and for better government more often than the people of any other nation.
The Democratic sweep that flipped the government upside down last week is becoming more common as this polarized, formerly 50-50 country swings wildly between extremes. It isn't support for Democratic or Republican policies that's giving us whiplash every two or four years. It's a total disgust and rejection of the party in power. In 2024, it was a Republican sweep that materialized after the Democrats botched COVID, tried to impose radical social policies, and opened the border to millions of illegal aliens. Donald Trump and the GOP believed they swept into office because the voters loved their policies instead of hating the Democrats less.
"Americans are hate-voting in election after election," writes Reason's J.D. Tuccille. "While the shrinking ranks of hardcore partisans still like their parties, Pew Research's Steven Shepard reported last month that majorities of independents who just favor one party say a major reason they lean toward their preferred party is that the other party's policies are harmful."
Even so, in our seemingly immutable two-party system, rejecting one of the political tribes means handing the reins of power to the other. Politicians aren't very good at accepting that they're regarded as slightly less awful than the alternative and acting accordingly. They always take the ball and run.
"Democrats will use their new trifecta status in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to dismantle union reforms, progress on taxes, school choice and litigation reform," cautions The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel.
Sure enough, Democratic governors in Arizona and Texas immediately renewed vows to roll back overwhelmingly popular school choice programs, just as their colleagues in Virginia earlier attacked that state's once robust protections for self-defense rights once they gained power.
"Republicans were spanked this year after they replaced Democrats who sent government spending and resulting inflation soaring, only to implement tariffs and a war that kept prices rising, along with unpopular immigration enforcement," writes Tuccille. It's likely that Democrats will overreach in the next two years and end up getting slaughtered in 2028.
Meanwhile, what's a citizen to do? The government is so large now that you can't escape it. Or can you?
Recent history suggests that Americans have become experts at ignoring laws they don't like. "There were twice as many speakeasies in Rochester, New York, as saloons closed by Prohibition," writes Cato's Mark Thornton, noted in a 1991 analysis. "That was more or less true throughout the country."
There's also a compliance rate of about 4% for New York's "mandatory" registration for so-called assault weapons. From defying same-sex relationship bans to ignoring laws against gambling, Americans have become practiced in the art of ignoring or undermining laws they don't agree with.
Ignoring the law isn't a completely satisfactory replacement for living under a predictable and permissive regime. There's always the risk of arrest. People have little recourse when they get ripped off or otherwise mistreated when engaged in illegal activity. And underground markets empower organized criminals, who are not the safest people to deal with.
But defying laws also helps compel political change. It forces politicians to choose between looking impotent as laws go ignored, or as if they're responsive to popular opinion. Over the years, officeholders who agreed to legalize booze, marijuana, same-sex relationships, concealed carry, and the like weren't always true believers in the cause. But they recognized unbeatable popular resistance when they saw it.
While they disagreed intensely on how much power to grant the new state and federal authorities, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention universally agreed that government is an instrument created by the people, and if it fails to serve its purpose, the people retain the ultimate sovereignty to bypass, defy, or replace it.
Over the last two years, Democrats in state government have defied federal authorities or sought to nullify federal mandates on several occasions. Multi-state coalitions of Democratic attorneys general routinely file emergency lawsuits to block federal policies on environmental rollbacks, data sharing, and funding conditions. For instance, large coalitions of states have mobilized legal challenges against federal restrictions on public benefits, education rules, and immigration directives.
"Withholding consent" can also be accomplished by individuals. In ways large and small, Americans will find a way around odious laws, carrying on a tradition that's more than 250 years old and defines the American character perhaps more than any other attribute.
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Editor's Note: President Trump is leading America into the "Golden Age" as Democrats desperately try to stop it.
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