Integrity is not a trait that can exist on its own. The word is a noun that refers to an entity, quality, state, action, or concept. Whether describing a trait of character or expressing a property of strength, integrity is always related to something else. However it is used, an essential quality of integrity is its role in describing completeness and soundness for what it refers to.

As applied to people, integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong principles. By extension, integrity implies that any organization of persons is more vital when honesty and a striving towards principles promulgated for the good of the whole. These attributes are a source of pride for Americans. We like to believe we define our character as rugged individuals who, by sheer will of force, carve out for ourselves and our families a superior way of life that attracts other such people to form a “more perfect union” governed by fairly applied laws.

James Burke wrote a book in 1985 called The Day the Universe Changed. In the book, Burke describes how seemingly small random events, or isolated moments, can radically change our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

I believe such a moment occurred on July 27, 2016 after the Republican National Convention concluded.

My wife and I watched an interview with former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and CNN’s Alisyn Camerota. We were horrified to hear Gingrich explain what we now all understand as “alternative truth.” When confronted with the fact that crime in the United States had decreased, he insisted that facts don’t matter as much as feelings about crime. He said, “The current view is that liberals have a whole set of statistics which theoretically may be right, but it’s not where human beings are. People are frightened… As a political candidate, I’ll go with how people feel, and I’ll let you go with the theoreticians.”

I believe that was the instant that heralded the death of truth and the political weaponization of fear in our country. It is when temptation overtook our national ethos. We succumbed to fear and ran willingly into the darkness of disenfranchisement, supremacy, and othering. We have been damaged by the false narrative of “exceptionalism” that denies our actual past and obscures our present. Our nation is imperiled because many of us are willing to sacrifice integrity and the rule of law for authoritarian power.

Democracies operate on fact, science, and objectivity, along with law. When there is no basis for action, save feelings, there is no democracy. We knew that, but we abandoned our highest path because a messy democracy became too complicated for some to bear. Newt Gingrich and his ilk smashed our Achilles heel to herd us into temptation and usher us into an era of darkness.

The events of January 6, 2021, may have sealed our fate.