1. United States
2. Kan.
3. Letter

More than half of the country no longer trusts President Trump with unchecked power. A new PRRI poll shows 52 percent of Americans, including a rising share of Republicans, now call him a “dangerous dictator” who must be restrained before he harms our democracy. Only 44 percent still see him as a strong leader who deserves more authority. Those numbers will follow you into every town hall and campaign stop.  Even people who once served him are sounding the alarm. Former White House aides Alyssa Farah Griffin, Sarah Matthews, and Cassidy Hutchinson warned that a second Trump term “could mean the end of American democracy as we know it” and urge lawmakers to put country over personality. They are not pundits shouting from afar; they watched the machinery up close.  Political scientists confirm the danger. An April survey of more than 500 scholars reports the sharpest single-year drop in America’s democratic health since the Civil War, linking the slide to a flurry of executive orders that bypass Congress. Bright Line Watch now scores the United States at 55 on its 100-point democracy index, down from 67 before Mr. Trump returned to office.   Your oath is to the Constitution, not to a man. History will record who defended the guardrails and who stayed quiet while executive reach morphed into executive rule. Polls already show approval dipping into the thirties and independents naming authoritarian drift as a top fear. Stay this course and you risk being remembered as an accomplice to freedoms lost.   Choose courage. Hold an open forum this month, invite legal scholars, veterans, and clergy, and listen. Co-sponsor bipartisan bills that curb emergency powers, protect a free press, and guarantee certified elections. Publish a clear pledge to honor every lawful court ruling, no matter who wins. Your constituents, and your children, will remember whether you guarded democracy or enabled its undoing.