America’s representative form of constitutional democracy is on the verge of breaking down because of political corruption at the highest levels and the concurrent decline in civility and growing mob behavior.

Fundamental and deep division prevents government from fixing itself. But we the people can play a decisive role in turning things around by voting in the midterm elections. First some background.

By the end of the eight-year Obama administration, the Democratic Party leadership found itself with the two-fold challenge of a weak presidential candidate in Hillary Clinton and ineffective and unpopular public policies. At the same time, a significant number of high-ranking U.S. government officials and their subordinates in the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the CIA — almost all appointed during the Obama administration — decided collectively to take unusual action to assist Clinton. They effectively formed a cabal and quietly weaponized the Justice Department, the FBI, and the CIA to run an operation to create a sensational false narrative about candidate Donald Trump and leak it to the press to stir up scandal they hoped would undermine his candidacy leading up to the November 2016 election.

When those efforts came to naught and Trump was elected, the cabal became more determined. It needed to cover its tracks and take new steps to undermine the now duly elected president — actions that were tantamount to a coup d'état . These actions sent a message to Democratic Party elites that it’s OK to disrespect the results of a legitimate presidential election. And it sent a message to rank-and-file Democrats that it’s OK to break the law and engage in mob behavior to hound and verbally assault highly visible Republican Party figures.

Clinton recently said that “civility can start” if Democrats “are fortunate enough to win back the House and/or the Senate.” Her former vice presidential running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), publicly advocated to “fight in the courts, fight in the streets.” Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, recently said of Republicans: “When they go low, we kick them.” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who may seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, has called for people to “get up in the face of some Congress people.” In similar fashion, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) has gotten endless media replay for advocating: “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. You push back on them. Tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!”

Even though these are the ways of banana republics — which almost always end in tyranny — Democrat leadership apparently thinks it will be different if they can get away with it and prevail. But substantively, there is no denying that these actions are repudiating core principals of America’s founding and its 230 years of constitutional rule of law.

And for those who can’t fathom what mob rule would look like in the United States, the 11th-hour ambush of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh reveals all you need to know: unscrupulous tactics of personal destruction exploiting the #MeToo movement to set the stage for presumption of guilt ginned up by media sensationalism that feeds mob rule. Is Democratic Party leadership now all in with Saul Alinsky, whose “10 Rules for Radicals” are simply “the ends justify the means”?

Regardless of party affiliation, citizens need to take a stand now, and voting remains the surest way to send a clear message. It’s time to repudiate mob rule and high-level corruption that has severely harmed federal government institutions — the FBI, the Justice Department, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and constitutional due process.

The most important issue this midterm election is not the candidates but rather the political parties and where each stands on rule by constitutional law vs. rule by deep state elites and mob rule. Make that determination and get out and vote.

Scott Powell is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle and managing partner of RemingtonRand LLC. Email him at [email protected].