The United States government frequently condemns other nations for violating their constitutions. Venezuela is only the latest target — threatened with removal by a government that claims to act in defense of constitutional order. Yet those who support such threats know full well that the United States itself is violating its own Constitution. The dysfunction of the U.S. government is not unknown; it is overlooked.
The Forgotten Oath
Every officer of the United States swears to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Nowhere in that oath do we find the words “when called upon.” The duty is constant, unconditional, and personal. It binds the conscience as much as the office.
But this duty has been diluted by habit and convenience. The modern officer acts as though fidelity to the Constitution is situational — activated only by crisis or public outrage. The result is a government that proclaims fidelity abroad while tolerating dysfunction at home.
The Dysfunction We Pretend Not to See
The paralysis of Congress, the erosion of checks and balances, and the normalization of executive defiance are not isolated flaws. They are symptoms of a deeper betrayal: the quiet abandonment of the Oath itself.
When the head of state once boasted (as a candidate) that he could “shoot a man in Times Square” without losing political support, he was testing not the law but the conscience of the nation. The troubling truth is that he was right. While state law would punish the act, the federal government has repeatedly failed to act against violations of the Constitution itself.
The dysfunction is not hidden — it is simply ignored. Officials evade responsibility. The public accepts paralysis as normal. The institutions designed to correct violations now enable them.
When Fidelity Was Immediate
It was not always so.
In Hayburn’s Case (1792), Congress required judges to administer pensions under executive review. Within weeks, the Circuit Court judges wrote to President Washington refusing to comply, explaining that the law violated the Constitution. They had not been “called upon.” Their oath compelled them to act, and Congress repealed the offending law.
A decade later, in Marbury v. Madison (1803), Chief Justice John Marshall declared a provision of the Judiciary Act void because it conflicted with the Constitution. Once again, Congress accepted the correction.
These early moments were not about judicial supremacy — they were about constitutional fidelity. Officers of government recognized that the Constitution’s survival depended on their active responsibility, not on institutional inertia.
From Fidelity to Dysfunction
Contrast that with today’s government. The same Constitution that once inspired self-correction now sits paralyzed in the midst of dysfunction. Congress yields its powers to the executive; courts defer to political convenience; presidents stretch or ignore constitutional boundaries with impunity.
And yet, these violations provoke no institutional alarm. The dysfunction is so pervasive that it has become invisible — a silent erosion mistaken for stability.
To denounce Venezuela or any other nation for constitutional infidelity while our own government fails to function as designed is to confess hypocrisy. It is the Oath itself — not foreign governments — that stands violated.
The Real Indictment
The early republic treated the Constitution as a living measure of conscience. When government erred, it corrected itself swiftly and openly. Today, we treat dysfunction as inevitable and fidelity as optional. We have inverted the moral order of the Republic.
The silence of those who have sworn the Oath is not mere oversight — it is an indictment. It reveals that the institutions once animated by conscience now operate on habit, calculation, and fear.
The dysfunction of the U.S. government is the one truth both parties refuse to name, because acknowledging it would mean accepting that the Constitution no longer governs the government.
A Call to Remember
The Constitution was never self-enforcing. It was sustained by men and women who understood that fidelity to it required action. Hayburn’s judges did not wait for a crisis; Marshall did not wait for public opinion. They acted because their Oath left them no choice.
If the officers of the United States rediscovered that understanding — if they remembered that the Oath binds them even when silence is easier — then perhaps America could again speak credibly about constitutional order abroad.
Until then, the greatest threat to the Constitution will not come from Venezuela, Russia, or China. It will come from the willful blindness of a government that refuses to see its own dysfunction.
Darius A. Lecointe, PhD, JD
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