I grew up in England. I came to the U.S. as a student in the 1970s and returned in 1985 to pursue my career. My family and I proudly became naturalized citizens in 1995, grateful to join a nation founded on liberty, justice, and democratic ideals.

Yet today, I find myself thinking back to the darker chapters of my first homeland’s history. Winston Churchill’s six-volume history of the Second World War began with Volume One: The Gathering Storm. I feel a storm gathering again—not in far-off Europe, but here, in my adopted country, the United States of America.

Who among us could have imagined a time when:

• Masked, anonymous agents roam city streets, detaining individuals with little regard for due process?

• January 6

  rioters are freed, while their prosecutors are dismissed?

• The streets of Washington, D.C. are patrolled by the National Guard, not to protect democracy but to intimidate dissent?

• A war criminal—Vladimir Putin—receives a red-carpet welcome on American soil?

• The President openly pressures governors to redraw maps and hand his party new congressional seats?

• The Smithsonian is attacked for “saying too many nasty things about slavery”?

• The Department of Justice declares that its mission is to prosecute political enemies?

• The President and his family enrich themselves by billions, defying the Constitution’s emoluments clause?

• And, most chilling of all, the President is granted absolute lifetime immunity for any act committed in office?

Where is the outrage? Where is the moral leadership? Too many of us have been numbed into indifference, watching as the constitutional guardrails meant to restrain a dictatorial executive are ripped down one by one.

New Jersey can lead the way back. Governor Murphy should refuse to supply our National Guard to patrol other states’ cities, or to support ICE actions that trample due process. And as redistricting becomes a race to the bottom, he should launch a national campaign demanding that all states place map-drawing in the hands of independent commissions.

But governors cannot do this alone. Each of us must act. Call your representatives—Democrats and Republicans alike. Tell them to end this march toward national perdition. If we fail, then in another few years, historians may write not of America’s triumph, but of the collapse of the great experiment in representative democracy.