Our nation’s need for the American Constitution Society is more compelling today than at any time since its founding. Our democracy today is in serious peril. The threats are everywhere, they are evident, and they are dire. They are evident in the corrupting and distorting role of money in our political process, in the Republicans’ unprecedented use of political gerrymandering to distort our representative democracy, in the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, in the Court’s perverse understanding of the Second Amendment, in the impact of social media and the polarization of American democracy, in the mass incarceration of African-Americans, in the persistent attacks on the rights of women, immigrants, gays, lesbians, and transgender persons, in the corruption of congressional norms with the Republicans’ unprecedented abuse of the filibuster and unconscionable refusal to confirm Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, and on and on and on. In this world of Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions, Neil Gorsuch, and Mitch McConnell, our nation needs the American Constitution Society today more than ever. ACS stands on the right side of history, and it deserves and needs your support.

By saying all this, I do not mean to create despair, but determination. Our nation has been through challenging periods in the past. During World War I, for example, the government imprisoned more than two thousand people for their criticism of the war and the draft, during World War II we interned more than 120,000 individuals of Japanese descent – more than two-thirds of whom were American citizens, and during the Age of McCarthy our nation at the state, local, and federal levels persecuted and prosecuted thousands of individuals during a vitriolic anti-Communist campaign that challenged the very premises of our democracy. In short, we have been here before, and although each time is different, with courage, determination, and conviction, we can – once again -- win back our democracy.

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