Anything can become normalized, including changes in people, health and relationships. And adapting to change is generally a desirable goal. Changes can also occur, and normalize, with governments, borders, peace and war.

When I was born, America and the USSR were in a lengthy Cold War that defined almost every aspect of American foreign policy. But then, when I was 26, the Soviet Union dissolved like mounds of snow in an early spring rain, and what had seemed an entrenched world order quickly washed away. 

Not so long ago, residential neighborhoods in the United States were visited by hyper-militarized law enforcement only when violent crimes were in process, such as active-shooter or hostage situations. Police SWAT teams, trained in such high-risk operations, have been around since the 1960s but their specialized services are infrequently required.

The United States of America, my country, has become unrecognizable in the past year.

Yes, we have known for decades that police departments too often lie about the excessive use of violence. When everyone began carrying cell phones with state-of-the-art video cameras, police brutality became harder to cover up. And, yes, our government has fabricated reasons to invade countries (Iraq, 2003) and influence military coups of democratically elected leaders of other nations (Chile, 1973), none of which were beneficial to any country, including our own, in the long run.

At home, however, we could believe noble principles still prevailed.

The preamble of the Declaration of Independence, penned by Thomas Jefferson 250 years ago, begins, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Subsequent citizens, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., have pushed our nation to make these words a reality, that all people should experience equal opportunity, liberty and justice, and laws be fairly upheld and administered.

The same year our Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine published “Common Sense,” a widely read and influential pamphlet in which he wrote, “For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”

But today, our nation is run by a scofflaw, bent on dismantling America’s foundational ideals.

Inspectors general were dismissed days after President Trump’s inauguration. The Department of Justice and many of the courts have been packed with loyalists and are no longer independent and free from political influence. Civil servants, who for more than 140 years have been hired strictly on a merit-based system to avoid political corruption, have been fired capriciously. Entire agencies and departments that were created by Congress, and which only Congress can legally eliminate, have been rendered non-existent by work-around executive orders.

The congressional majority has proven itself more concerned about Trump’s ire than upholding their oath of office to “support, defend, and bear true faith and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

In one year, the invasion of American cities by poorly trained, militarily armed ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officers, whom Trump and many in his administration publicly call to be violently aggressive as they descend mostly upon Democratic cities, has become commonplace. They are not responding to active, “hot” crimes, but hunting down in war-like fashion immigrants in their homes simply for the crime of being in our country. Immigration is a perennial problem that everyone can agree needs solving, but terrorizing entire cities for the passive crime of being here illegally is akin to using a machine gun to kill mosquitoes and does the opposite of increase safety in our streets.

An investigation into the Jan. 7 murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis by an ICE agent will not yield accurate findings because, in order to control all findings, Trump’s Justice Department has blocked Minnesota’s state investigators from doing their jobs. In response to this disturbingly biased approach, six federal prosecutors resigned this past week. To watch videos of an ICE officer shooting Good in the head and then read the administration’s spin to not believe what your eyes see or your ears hear is as Orwellian as it gets.

While the end of the Soviet Union was a positive disruption to the world order, what we are witnessing now is not. The disruption of the foundational principles of our nation, which have guided this country through turmoil and prosperity, must not become normalized, for if it does, the 250-year-old American experiment will perish.

This column, first published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday, January 18, 2026, is now more urgent in light of the killing of ICU nurse Alex Pretti by ICE on January 24.