I took a break for 10 days and it’s like nothing has changed. The coup loon is still treating the law like it’s a chew toy.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t a good American supposed to honor a subpoena once it’s served? Isn’t it a fundamental rule of law that one cannot ignore or defy a subpoena? That the word itself is Latin for “under penalty,” which means that someone who refuses to comply will be punished?

But apparently there’s one rule for us common folk and another for Trump’s fascist aspirants. When Steve Bannon was slapped with a subpoena by the House committee that’s probing Jan. 6, he simply said nah. Trump, via his umpteenth lawyer, decreed that Bannon shall not cooperate, so of course Bannon has announced, via his lawyer, that The Great and Powerful Oz had spoken, and thus “we must accept his direction.” The con this time was that whatever Bannon said to Trump about the attempted coup was supposedly covered by “executive privilege.” Which is hilarious ,because Bannon ceased to be an administration adviser back in 2017, when he was fired.

In the words of Jamie Raskin, a constitutional law professor and member of the Jan. 6 committee, “There is no coup-against-the-government privilege.”

Bannon, who reportedly urged Trump – long in advance of Jan. 6 – to focus on the planned insurrection, doesn’t care a whit that congressional subpoenas carry the force of law. The MAGA mentality doesn’t recognize such trifles. If you or I were served with such a subpoena, we’d surely be reminded that the Supreme Court has long described congressional subpoena power as “broad and indispensable,” and that since 1857 it has been a federal crime to stonewall such a subpoena.

Given the broad scope of events – the perpetuation of the Big Lie, which is designed to whitewash the failed coup and tee up the overthrow of democracy in ’24 – the current subpoena flap seems like a mere procedural subplot. But as Norman Eisen, counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment, rightly points out, this is a critical accountability moment, “nothing less than an existential threat from within to American democracy.”

Trump, via his lawyer, purportedly thinks he has “fundamental privileges” that shield MAGA plotters from federal subpoenas. I think we should all try that when government comes calling – refuse jury duty, stonewall speeding tickets, everything – and see how far we get. But why not give it a try? If a twice-impeached unemployed Floridian has the juice to get people to defy subpoenas, surely we commoners have the same right to pee on the law.

The big question, of course (and I’m already rolling my eyes), is what the Democrats who run the show are gonna do about this. They’re vowing to “swiftly consider” criminal contempt charges, a form of words that no doubt has the MAGAts quaking in their hobnail boots. (No, seriously, the Jan. 6 committee says it really, really, really means it.) Indeed, unless the committee follows through on its threat, the whole investigative exercise will be rendered meaningless. Indeed, the threat of a contempt citation will only work if Merrick Garland’s Justice Department backs it up by enforcing it.

The problem, however, is that the coup conspirators are prepared to contest any such action in the courts. It doesn’t take a genius degree from Trump University to recognize the ex-president’s game plan: Drag everything out long enough for the Republicans to take back Congress in the ’22 midterms, thus enabling them to snuff the Jan. 6 probe forever.

But there’s a possible solution, if only the Democrats had the fortitude to try it. Congress, bypassing the Justice Department, has the power to arrest those who defy it. The Supreme Court has long decreed that Congress has “independent and unilateral authority to arrest and detain individuals in order to compel compliance with a subpoena.” No such arrests for “inherent contempt” have been made since 1935, but ask yourself whether MAGA Republicans would hesitate for a millisecond to invoke such power if it were available to them.

Our constitutional crisis is here and now – as many of us predicted it would be when Trump got elected – and weakness will ensure that democracy dies. Enforcing the subpoenas is only one small front in the war to save our traditions. But as neoconservative scholar Robert Kagan warns, “One wonders whether modern American politicians, in either party, have it in them to make such bold moves, whether they have the insight to see where events are going and the courage to do whatever is necessary to save the democratic system…Wouldn’t it be better to go out fighting for democracy than to slink off quietly into the night?”