On Friday, a group of retired judges will step off a tour bus in an upscale Michigan suburb after three days of touring cornfields, cities and coal towns in Ohio and Pennsylvania. They carry a message with them.

In courthouses and public squares, they have commemorated the nation’s 250th anniversary with a dire warning: the rule of law in the United States is in grave danger. They will deliver a similar message at a library in Grosse Pointe, outside Detroit, the latest stop on an extraordinary tour to defend judicial independence and bolster confidence in the courts.

Americans’ trust in the judicial system and democracy has declined in recent years. The country is more polarized and President Donald Trump has repeatedly questioned the impartiality of the judicial system.

Some tour judges said in phone interviews this week that the United States was on the brink.

“Looking back on history, we have faltered,” said former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Michael Donnelly. “This is a time when we can decide to re-instill those beliefs that we are a country of laws and not men.”

The four-day tour of the Rust Belt is a sharp departure for a typically secretive and insular branch of government. Federal judges, in particular, largely limit their comments to the courtroom and written decisions, focusing on the facts of individual cases.

But that restraint is loosening amid a barrage of attacks from Trump and other White House officials, the administration’s unbridled defiance of the orders of U.S. district courts and its expansive view of executive power. Trump called a district judge who ruled against one of his immigration measures “crooked” and suggested, without evidence, that the Supreme Court justices who struck down his tariffs were motivated by foreign interests.

Recently, more federal judges have begun speaking out about receiving death threats and profane messages, although they have not blamed Trump or any other officials. Some have criticized the administration’s policies in strongly worded opinions that strayed beyond the legal dispute before them. Even Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court John Roberts has weighed in.

In an appearance in March, Roberts said personal criticism of federal judges was dangerous and must stop. The rare rebuke from the chief justice of the nation’s highest court came two days after Trump’s comment about a “corrupt” judge, although Roberts did not mention Trump or anyone else by name.

The U.S. Marshals Service reported 564 threats against federal judges in the government’s fiscal year that ended in September, up from 509 the year before.

“I don’t want to say we’ve entered an era of lawlessness, but sometimes it feels like that,” said former U.S. District Court Judge Victoria Roberts, who was joining the bus tour in Michigan.

Timothy Lewis, another former federal judge on the tour, said his concerns about the politicization of the judiciary reached a tipping point a decade ago, when Senate Republicans thwarted President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Today, the rule of law faces an “existential threat” from a continued breakdown of norms, according to Lewis, who spent seven years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

“I have fundamental concerns,” he said, “about where we are headed as a nation.”

The tour began Tuesday in the western Pennsylvania town of Greensburg, once the center of a thriving coal industry that now draws visitors from nearby Pittsburgh for highland recreation and a historic downtown.

The judges mingled with patrons at a coffee shop before speaking at the ornate Westmoreland County Courthouse. He then headed to Washington, also in western Pennsylvania. The city of 13,000, where about 15% of the population is black, was a key stop on the Underground Railroad and a regional base for the Civil Rights Movement.

From there, the bus headed west to attend Wednesday’s events in Columbus, Ohio, and the town of Wooster in Amish country. The judges stopped at a Cracker Barrel restaurant along the way. They spent Thursday in Cleveland before heading around Lake Erie north to Michigan.

The two groups that planned the tour, called “Justice in Motion,” say they were inspired by a similar campaign in Poland in 2021, after that country’s ruling party took control of key judicial institutions.

Independent Polish judges visited dozens of cities to promote the rule of law and teach voters about the country’s constitution. The US tour also aims to educate people.

Maureen O’Connor, former chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, said justices risk ceding the narrative about their roles and motives to “voices of misinformation” if they don’t speak out.

A letter he received years ago and still has reminds him of that danger. The writer accused O’Connor, a Republican, of betraying her party when she repeatedly nullified legislative maps drawn by Republicans as illegal gerrymandering. “There was just a basic misunderstanding about what my role was as a judge,” O’Connor said.

O’Connor is among approximately 30 judges, including two former federal judges and one current federal judge, who will participate in the tour. One of the federal judges was appointed by a Democrat and the other two by Republicans. State judges, some of whom also remain in office, represent both parties.

They have been joined by former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, former Ohio Attorneys General and some attorneys. The event was organized by Democracy Rising Collaborative and Keep Our Republic, nonpartisan advocacy groups.

Organizers say they chose stops that would put the judges in front of as many people as possible to build connections and trust. The judges have accepted that mission.

“The lifeblood of the judiciary is public trust,” said Donnelly, a former Ohio Supreme Court justice. “If you lose it, it’s very difficult to get it back.”