Commentary by Jerry Lanson

SALISBURY, Connecticut — This is a quiet, community-oriented, affluent village in the state’s northwestern corner. But yesterday, No Kings Day, in the lexicon of sprawling, nationwide protests against the Trump Administration’s assault on the Constitution, drew about 100 people to the intersection of two roads opening onto the two-block long main street.

They gathered with signs and determination at 11 a.m., Saturday, one of hundreds of protests across the country. “Resist Like It’s Germany in 1938,” read one poster, a reference to the rising repression of Jews and others there in the days before World War II.

Given the Easter holiday weekend, the sweep of protests nationwide Saturday seemed quite remarkable, even if crowds were somewhat smaller than the millions who came out nationwide April 5. Yet some leading elected Democratic leaders continue to be clueless, plotting strategy for the 2026 midterms instead of recognizing that the Constitutional crisis is right now, a moral abyss marked most strikingly by ICE’s arrests and sometimes deportation without charge or due process of documented immigrants and occasionally citizens.

The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the 29-year-old Maryland father of three disabled children shipped to an El Salvadoran gulag has come to symbolize this growing phenomenon. Though he was arrested by mistake (as acknowledged initially by the Trump Administration), though the Supreme Court voted 9-0 that the administration should “facilitate” his return home, Donald Trump and his Justice Department have steadfastly refused, saying that only El Salvador’s dictator can decide to release him. It’s a ludicrous and dangerous position. The U.S. government is paying El Salvador millions of dollars to jail deported immigrants and to expand its prisons, presumably, as Trump told President Nayib Bukele, so that “homegrown” Americans can be sent there.

Yet The New York Times reported Saturday that California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom considers the Abrego Garcia affair the "distraction of the day,” a comment that shows a singular disinterest in the Constitution and rule of law. Newsom, and other Democrats who share that view — they reportedly fear “playing into Trump’s hands” — should be ashamed, both for their moral spinelessness and their stupidity.

The case of Abrego Garcia is no “distraction.” It is the clearest measure to date of whether our democracy has a chance of surviving until the next election.

Law is the foundation of democracy. Abrego Garcia is a human being who cannot be discarded so Democrats can focus on tariffs. And Abrego Garcia surely is not and will not be alone. Again, Donald Trump wants to ship citizens to El Salvador's jails.

If Abrego Garcia is abandoned in El Salvador, no one will be safe. As Ezra Klein wrote in the NYT this week, the emergency is now. Democratic leaders like Newsom must stop being clueless and instead, like Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who journeyed to El Salvador in an attempt to free Abrego Garcia, shout out his case for freedom, calling on the public to stand behind them.

Only then can we hope to continue to have free and fair elections, not only in 2028, when Newsom hopes to be president, but in 2026. Less than 100 days into the Trump Administration, it is jarringly clear that if we hope to restore some semblance of democracy, time is short.

Lanson is author of Jerry’s Substack.