I’m extremely proud my library is celebrating Constitution Day. On Wednesday, Sept. 17, it is offering free pocket copies of the Constitution, plus the Bill of Rights, Amendments, and Declaration of Independence on the day in 1787 delegates signed our founding document in Philadelphia. The Friends of the Greenfield Public Library are making copies available on a first-come basis. Given the times, the courts, and a president clearly acting counter to its constraints on authoritarian rule, it’s a “must-read” paperback.
Donald Trump’s unprecedented assault on constitutional limits underscore to me the unique roles our libraries play in upholding the democratic values of a nation. With seeds planted by Benjamin Franklin, libraries are fully entwined in our history. Yet when the Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden can be summarily fired without examination or due process, it’s clear this institution’s age-old commitments to democracy, accessibility, and the broad representation of ideas, speech, history and information are under attack.
This vindictive president poses a real and present danger to our right to free speech and privacy by inflaming a cult-like MAGA constituency and utilizing the “emergency docket” of courtier-stacked court. His reviled DOGE czar gained access to information on millions of government employees and private citizens. From Trump’s Day-One name-gaming and expunging of “Gulf of Mexico” from the language, to his greed and ego-filled marketing-moniker of a “Big Beautiful Bill,” up to today’s war blustering tweets to invade cities and instantly retitle the Department of Defense, have served to erode speech, public confidence and civil discourse. That’s just the first 250 days.
Democracies can and do fail. Even “the world’s oldest constitutional democracy” is not guaranteed to endure. When citizens lose sight of their history and neglect the sources and key understandings of their unalienable rights, freedoms erode; due process and justice disappear.
Libraries are where all are welcome as equals, without fear or favor, to inquire, read, fact-find, borrow and convene, regardless of means or social standing. As both emblems and institutions, they have never been more important as embodiments of the beliefs and laws enshrined in our founding documents. And credit is way overdue to our librarians — who’ve forever been stalwart in honoring our rights of privacy.
Trump’s “war” call-outs are meant to spread fear among vulnerable people. Sending armed, masked operatives onto streets where neither agent-identification nor due process rights are observed is abhorrent to a free society. The larger result is a speech-restraining message that enters the entire citizenry: all power is mine. It’s the hallmark of a police state.
Since January 20, Trump has made repeated assaults on speech, a free press, voting rights, the rights of women, and equal protection. The executive office is now a family wheel of fortune, while dictators are warmly coddled. He tosses war threats around like a schoolyard bully. The Defense Department renaming is straight from the authoritarian playbook: war on language, speech, and history.
As a journalist, the Constitution is a bible of sorts to me. I literally carry the one I picked up from my library years back. Perhaps Mr. Trump never got one. Or could he simply have misplaced the White House copy? After all he did fail to place his hand on an historic Bible offered at his inauguration, when asked to swear to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution. Perhaps he just forgot. I won’t.
According to my Constitution, when a president assumes the tyrannic trappings of a king, ruling via social media prod, innuendo, proclamation and summary judgement, they’ve alienated their right to the office. Treating citizens, institutions, states, even whole countries like Skinner Box rats — by tweets and gaslit “national emergency” claims is anathema to democracy and self-evident human rights.
Our Constitution begins with “We the People,” founding a nation bound by equality, justice and freedoms — vested in co-equal branches of government, due process, and the rule of law. It really is a great read.
I’m hoping all libraries are celebrating Constitution Day. They may not have pocket Constitutions, but I’m told they’re available for few dollars each from the U.S. Government Printing Office. Hopefully they’ll remain in print — and not be banned as “too woke.” Perhaps we should each purchase some, mail one to the president; and six others to select courtiers on the Supreme Court. But maybe, too, as free citizens, it’s time we all personally delivered them in Washington. As Ben Franklin noted in 1787, they’d created “a republic.” It remains to us to preserve one.
Karl Meyer lives in Greenfield.