We Are the Immune System: A Manifesto for the Defense of Democracy

“A constitutional coup doesn’t storm the gates — it rewrites the rules from inside. The only defense left is us.” - Mary Coughlin

We are living through a constitutional coup.

Not the kind with tanks in the streets and generals on television. This one is quieter, slower, and more insidious. It seeps into the very organs of the Republic, eroding their function while the people entrusted to protect them stand by.

A constitutional coup is the dismantling of democracy from within — using the very laws, procedures, and powers meant to protect the people as tools to entrench the powerful. It is the weaponizing of the Constitution against itself.

And Congress will not save us. Not like this. Not while both parties are infected by the same disease: cowardice.

One faction drives the authoritarian agenda with open ambition. The other enables it through delay, deference, and the dangerous fantasy that “playing the long game” will somehow stop the rot. That long game is killing us.

The Truth We Must Name

Our institutions are in survival mode. They are paralyzed by self-preservation and donor dependency.

They mistake silence for stability.
They confuse compromise with courage.
They pretend that avoiding conflict is the same as protecting peace.

It is not.

Every day they choose comfort over confrontation, the constitutional coup advances. Every time they treat democracy like a brand instead of a birthright, the foundations crack a little more. If we wait for them to find their backbone, we will wait until the lights go out.

The Reckoning We Must Demand

We — the people — are the immune system. And we cannot outsource our defense to a Congress that has forgotten its oath.

That means:

• Naming the constitutional coup in every conversation, post, and gathering — refusing the euphemisms that dull its danger.

• Calling out complicity wherever we see it, in both parties, in every chamber, in every election.

• Disrupting the comfort of leaders who choose career over Constitution.

• Organizing locally — in school boards, city councils, county commissions, and statehouses — because that is where the antibodies of democracy are built.

• Rejecting despair, because despair is the weapon of the oppressor.

The Choice Before Us

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

We can sit in the bleachers and watch the game be rigged, or we can flood the field.
We can wring our hands, or we can raise our voices.
We can wait for permission, or we can claim the authority that is already ours.

This is our inheritance, and our responsibility. The Constitution is not parchment in a museum. It is a living trust, and it survives only if we tend it.

Our Call

Let this be the moment we stop asking, “Why won’t they act?” and start declaring, “We are acting.”
Let this be the moment we stop waiting for rescue and become the rescue.
Let this be the moment the immune system awakens, and the body remembers how to fight for itself.

We are the guardians.
We are the witnesses.
We are the repair.

We are the immune system.
And we will not let this Republic die on our watch.

This is not the time for quiet hope.
This is the time for loud courage, unflinching truth, and relentless action.
The constitutional coup will not wait. Neither will we.

We are the immune system.
We will fight.
We will win.

Mary