Sen. Chris Murphy has warned against the erosion of democracy, saying a fellow Democratic leader was wrong to tell colleagues to stop “yelling” about President Donald Trump’s proposals.

In an interview with ABC News host Martha Raddatz, Murphy pledged to ratchet up his political activism against Trump in the months ahead.

“I think this is the most serious constitutional crisis the country has faced, certainly, since Watergate,” Murphy said. “The president is attempting to seize control of power and for corrupt purposes. The president wants to be able to decide how and where money is spent so that he can reward his political friends [and] punish his political enemies. That is the evisceration of democracy.”

The Democrat senator from Connecticut also slammed Trump over his pardons for Jan. 6 rioters and suggested they served as a form of intimidation against his political opponents.

“He is trying to crush his opposition by making them afraid of losing federal funding, by making them afraid of physical violence,” he said. “This is a red alert moment when this entire country has to understand that our democracy is at risk.”

“And for what? The billionaire takeover of government,” he added, referring to Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has been tasked with slashing government spending.

Raddatz noted recent lawsuits that have stopped Trump from moving ahead with his sweeping plans to overhaul government departments and agencies. A judge in one such case barred Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing the Treasury Department’s database.

“Why not just let the system work?” Raddatz asked Murphy.

“We’re not sure it’s working right now,” he replied. “I continue to get reports from Connecticut that agencies there, like Head Start programs and community health centers, are actually not receiving the funding that they are due. So, I think there’s a big question as to whether the administration actually is implementing the court order.”

Murphy said opponents of the president could not simply rely on the courts to stop him.

“You have to run a full-scale opposition. You can’t just rely on the courts,” he said. “We need our Republican colleagues in the House and in the Senate ultimately to put a stop to this.”

Raddatz later cited a comment from John Fetterman, Murphy’s Democrat colleague in the Senate, who said that Democrats had to stop “yelling” because “people are going to stop paying attention.”

“Democrats have already used the most severe kinds of language and condemnation. It’s going to lose its value, and no one’s going to pay attention to it,” Fetterman said last Thursday.

Murphy said he disagreed with Fetterman’s remarks.

“I’m not going to calm down. I had 800 people at a rally with 24 hours’ notice in Connecticut this last weekend,” he said. “This is a fundamental corruption.”

“Democracies don’t last forever,” he went on. “And what those who are trying to destroy democracies want is for everyone to stay quiet, for everyone to believe that the moment isn’t urgent. They want to use violence and the threat of violence and the threat of arrests to keep the opposition at home.”