Demonstrators march up Route 351 during the Hilltowns' “No Kings” rally on Wednesday in Rensselaerville. The event concluded at the volunteer fire company on Route 85, where pizza was offered. (Will Waldron/Times Union)

America’s founders could have simply written in the Declaration of Independence something like, “We don’t take this step lightly.” But, mindful of the gravity of their break with Great Britain, they employed the eloquence of the age to provide a much fuller explanation:

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

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What’s different about the United States of America in 2025 from the colonies in 1776 is that we have long managed to both choose and rid ourselves of leaders through free and fair elections and peaceful transfers of power. But Donald Trump and many of his fellow Republicans are trying to corrupt that process. They’re grossly gerrymandering congressional maps, imposing draconian........

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