“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This law of Newton, his second law, is a major law of physics. I’ve never considered its relevance to government, but here goes! Governments and humans are more than physical objects in time and space, and the federal government isn’t at rest. It wasn’t at rest when Donald Trump became president. But this column takes as its central claim the following: A president’s unjust action will be met by an equal but opposite reaction, if and only if Americans, inside and outside government, use their power as democratic citizens for justice.

The actions of Trump and his Rasputin, Musk, are stunning and stupefying — and I fear ill-advised as well. Birthright citizenship, buyouts of federal bureaucrats, better called civil servants, turning Gaza into the Riviera, and ending the work of the U.S. Agency for International Development are afoot. This is not an exhaustive list.

Ronald Reagan ran on a New Federalism platform in the 1980s. There was vague talk about ending or cutting back on federal bureaucracies and returning power to the states. Note that last phrase: redistributing power from the national........

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