Across the United States, many citizens are wrestling with a familiar dread, the sense that the institutions built to safeguard democracy have become fragile props in a long-running performance.

Donald Trump’s second presidency has exposed not only the weakness of federal guardrails but also the futility of watching each new outrage unfold as if civic norms could somehow restrain the convicted felon determined to shatter them.

He has turned politics into a spectacle, and in that theater, even resistance has become part of the show. The question is whether Americans must keep playing supporting roles in a drama that the majority did not choose.

The alternative is to rewrite the script entirely — to create a different kind of political performance, one that reclaims the language of legiti

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