Four voices in the wilderness.

Bernie Sanders: Well, of course, Bernie, the unhappy warrior of American politics. His urgent warnings over many years that the United States was in danger of becoming an oligarchy are being borne out with a vengeance by the Trump/Musk billionaire mafia.

Ironically, Sanders’ central insight is the same as Trump’s: that the system is irrevocably broken. Trump, however, has exploited the resulting discontent among working- and middle-class Americans to fashion an authoritarian alternative to democracy very different from the sort of genuine economic populism that Sanders offers (and which large numbers of voters embraced in the 2016 presidential primaries.) That Vermont’s senior U.S. senator has long been a prophet without honor among the Democratic Party establishment explains in large part why the Democrats find themselves in political exile today.

It comes as no surprise to anyone who knows Sanders that he is not content to be Cassandra. “I think the point is,” he recently told The New York Times, “it’s not good enough to attack Trump’s policies. ... It’s not good enough to attack his authoritarianism. When you have a corrupt political system that allows Musk and other multi-billionaires in both political parties to contribute huge amounts of money, the system is broken, period. And you can’t patch it up a little here and a little there.” The fight goes on, and you can expect Sanders to be on the front lines.

Michael Roth: Amid the shameful silence of many college administrators in the face of Trump’s onslaught on higher education, the president of Wesleyan University has distinguished himself by loudly and clearly articulating a spirited defense of academic freedom and the key role played on campus by diversity in all its variety — economic and ideological as well as racial and gender. And Roth is speaking out about the need to speak out.

“Leaders in civil society shouldn’t be ‘demure’ in the face of authoritarian attempts to align all power with a president’s agenda, civil society be damned,” he recently wrote. “Business and civic officials, religious authorities and college presidents should weigh in when they see the missions of their institutions — not to speak of the health of their country — compromised.”

Janet Mills: Say this for the governor of Maine: She ain’t no shrinking violet. When Trump harangued a bipartisan group of governors recently about his executive order banning “men from playing in women’s sports,” he called out Mills and instructed her state to comply. To which the governor replied that Maine was going to follow the law. “See you in court,” she told Trump.

Mills followed up by issuing a statement warning Americans that the rule of law is at stake. “In America, the president is neither a king nor a dictator, as much as this one tries to act like it — and it is the rule of law that prevents him from being so.”

This confrontation made some other governors at the meeting nervous. “It was a little uncomfortable in the room,” Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt told Fox News. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said, “We always hope that people can disagree in a way that elevates the discourse and tries to come to a common solution.” The idea of an elevated discourse with Trump is an oxymoron, and the notion that speaking your mind is somehow disrespectful is absurd. These craven responses reflect just how spineless the political class is. Mills, by contrast, has grasped and acted on an essential truth: The only way to cope with bullies is to stand up to them, not to try to appease them.

Chris Murphy: The U.S. senator from Connecticut has been at the forefront of resistance to Trump world since the election. And he has kept his attention riveted on the danger presented by the attempted coup d’etat that is unfolding in the early weeks of Trump’s second term.

“Nothing matters other than the question of whether or not we let the billionaires destroy our democracy,” Murphy said recently, while warning of “the distinct possibility that we do not have a free and fair election in 2028.” Not too long ago, this would have been widely dismissed as fear-mongering or mere hyperbole. No more.

This is far from an exhaustive list of those of good heart and great courage who are struggling to make their voices heard above the din raised by Trump. But many more leaders need to raise the alarm that what’s at stake is not the effect of any particular policy, no matter how devastating, but whether government of the people, by the people, for the people is to survive.