As our families gather to celebrate, commemorate or commiserate on the Fourth of July, there is much about President Donald Trump and his administration that is reminiscent of the times when members of Congress assembled in 1776 and signed the Declaration of Independence.
Their Declaration of Independence was also a declaration of war against British tyranny—they could no longer tolerate “any form of government” that was destructive to their aims of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The representatives cited a long list of charges against the King of Great Britain, noting that he had “refused his Assent of Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”
What was true for the American men of the 18th century—no women or African-Americans were among the delegates—has a familiar ring today as we deal with the insufferable edicts and tweets of a president who on a daily basis is eager to violate our nation of laws, to echo the recent comment by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, who, along with his fiancée, Mika Brzezinski, has been assailed by the president.
“He has obstructed the administration of justice,” the patriots said of King George, and that particular charge certainly has resonance with Trump’s role in the investigation of Russia’s possible involvement in the last presidential election.
When King George was charged with erecting a “multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance,” we are reminded of the men and women Trump has appointed to head various governmental agencies. In each instance, whether in education, environment, energy or civil rights, his or her mission is to destroy rather than uphold the duties of that office.
Toward the end of the Declaration, the representatives wrote, “We have warned them [the British brethren] from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.”
The British legislature is roughly akin to our Republican members of Congress in their resolute insistence on repealing and replacing Obamacare. The “circumstances of emigration” invokes for us nowadays the issues of immigration and a president who has expressed neither sympathy nor sanctuary for our illegal immigrants.
We could go on listing the number of King George’s “usurpations” that inspired the Declaration of Independence and observing how ominously they compare to our current conditions as more and more Americans voice their dissent against the Trump regime.
At the close of the Declaration the representatives pledged “to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor,” to do away with a tyrannical leader, and we can do no less to Make America Great Again—Trump Must Go!