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Americans who love their country have something both frightening and reassuring to contemplate today, as the nation celebrates the 246th anniversary of its unlikely birth. Playing out before them in dramatic fashion is clear and credible evidence of both the fragility of our democracy and of the kind of steadfast courage that has rallied patriots for almost 2 centuries.

From the violence of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection to the hearings of the Jan. 6 House committee, Americans with open minds are being shown how the democracy won by the soldiers of 1776 can be swept away by an authoritarian who cares only for himself.

But they are also seeing the extraordinary determination of Americans who are in a position to stand up for the country and who then do it. Those individuals are risking their careers, their safety and, in some cases, their reputations, as former President Donald Trump attempts to smear them. Some, as the committee revealed last Tuesday, are telling their truth, despite intimidation by Trumps pack of wolves.

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Look at the courage of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trumps chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Shes 26 years old and, last Tuesday, was the committees first live witness who was inside the West Wing on Jan. 6. She brought viewers of last Tuesdays hearing into the White House, to the edge of the insurrection and to its immediate aftermath.

She told the committee and the country that Trump knew the crowd at the Jan. 6 insurrection was armed before he sent it streaming to the Capitol, pumped up with lies about a stolen election. She heard Meadows tell White House Counsel Pat Cipollone that Trump agreed with protesters calling to hang Vice President Mike Pence, who had enraged the president by refusing to illegally block the certification of electors for Joe Biden.

She testified that she saw Trumps incendiary tweet attacking Pence at 2:24 p.m., in the midst of the riot. As a staffer that works always to represent the administration to the best of my ability to showcase the good things he had done for the country, I remember feeling frustrated, disappointed ... I was really sad, she told the committee.

As an American, I was disgusted. It was unpatriotic. It was un-American. We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie.

Thats a patriot. Imagine the pressures she set aside to do her duty, not as a Republican or a White House staffer or a defender of Trump, but as an American. Anyone paying attention to the committee has seen that kind of courage before from others who worked for, or were smeared by, the former president. They saw it in two Georgia poll workers whose lives were upended by Trump and his acolytes. Any of them maybe all of them could face new threats because they had the courage and the patriotism to tell the world what they know.

Thats what defending a democracy takes, when the president cares nothing for the democracy. Not everyone has been as brave. Some are too cowardly even to appear. Others show up only to invoke their right against self-incrimination. Among them was Trumps former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Once a general in the United States Army, Flynn couldnt even bring himself to say that he believed in the peaceful transfer of power. As he did with questions about whether the violence on Jan. 6 was morally or legally justified, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment. OK, but not even the peaceful transfer of power? Thats fundamental to the U.S. Constitution. Flynn swore fealty to it in his oath as a soldier. We fought a revolution so we could have it.

This is how our democracy one for which millions have laid down their lives can be lost. Its how this one can still be lost, with the former president continuing to command the loyalty of millions who are willing to be misled willing to support a would-be American despot who lied in an effort to illegally maintain power, who was reluctant to call off the mob that surged into the Capitol and who was content to see his vice president threatened with murder. It was a dark moment in our history.

Thankfully, Americans are also seeing how a democracy can be preserved: by public airing of evidence; by a determined effort to peel back layers of lies and deception; by courageous devotion to the Constitution.

Thats what Americans are seeing in the members of this bipartisan committee and especially among the witnesses who are brave enough and patriotic enough to testify truthfully before an audience of millions, despite the threats many of them have reported.

With them, Americans are being reminded this Independence Day of who they are, where they came from and what they should be celebrating.

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The Editorial Board: There are patriots among us this Independence Day - Buffalo News