I have a message for John Roberts, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who has a seasonal property in my hometown: Get off your duff and defend democracy.

Defend the Constitution and the rule of law, which you are sworn to uphold. Time is running out as Donald Trump emulates Adolf Hitler.

Roberts’ court — or at least its right-wing majority — can’t seem to recognize what millions of us see: A president run amok, violating the United States Constitution in myriad ways. Trump is persecuting those who stand in the way of his self-evident desire to be a dictator. A cruel, vicious and lawless dictator, who doesn’t care a whit what happens to his victims. It appears our shameful Congress can’t summon up the courage to confront Trump’s outrages, and now we see the highest court in the land unwilling to demand that an innocent man, illegally deported and imprisoned and possibly tortured, be returned to his family in the United States.

That’s just one example of how the Roberts court is undermining, instead of honoring, our founding principles of free speech, due process and that you are innocent until proven guilty. That means proven in a court of law, with right of appeal. You are not guilty when tagged by a venomous president who has never even acknowledged he lost the 2020 presidential election.

In fact, lying is Trump’s modus operandi; that and accusing others of his own bad behavior. He is uncivil, immoral and yet he pushes the buttons of Americans who continue to support a president who pardoned convicted criminals for attacking the U.S. Capitol, at his bidding. Perhaps some of his followers, consciously or otherwise, are attracted to his white supremacist views, his disparagement of certain ethnic groups and of certain nations abroad and his admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Trump himself is a convicted felon and a sexual predator. But those faults pale compared to his current anti-democratic and unlawful acts, such as hiring Nazi sympathizer Elon Musk, firing thousands of government employees and doing his damnedest to destroy America as we know it. It’s un-American, illegal and immoral to pounce on innocent people, arrest and jail them without charges, but that’s just what Trump and his sycophants are doing through ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), an agency we should abolish.

Trump is the epitome of a bully, trying to force any opposing him to bend to his erratic will. Like tyrants before him, Trump plays on people’s fears, threatening to curtail or eliminate their basic rights. Taking on worthy institutions, Trump yanks their funds. Do as I say or else. Not everyone caves to Trump’s bullying, and that infuriates him. And it begs the question, where is the fury and outrage from those who could stop this dangerously deranged president?

I met John Roberts at a party years ago, and he seemed a decent chap as we shared oysters on the beach. But that was before his court’s Citizens United decision allowed unlimited money to flow into elections, an open invitation to corruption. I was before the Roberts court said presidents were above the law. It was before the Roberts court stripped women of their right to control their own bodies.

The word “decent” comes to mind, recalling the crazed demagogue Sen. Joseph McCarthy, a Wisconsin Republican who was brought down in 1954 by U.S. Army lawyer Joseph Welch. Responding to McCarthy’s brutal attacks, Welch said, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

After that, McCarthy’s “Red Scare” Communist infiltration nonsense fell apart, as did McCarthy himself. An alcoholic, he died three years later at age 48.