A 249-year-old indictment looks unfortunately current today
The Declaration of Independence is worth reading on any Fourth of July for its preamble alone, which sets out a concise mission statement for the United States and any just government: to secure “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” and other “inalienable Rights” for everyone.
But on this July 4, the Declaration’s third segment–its list of 27 offenses charged against King George III–seems relevant in ways that I wish it were not. At least nine of them appear applicable to the actions of the vainglorious man in the White House who does not want to be bothered with opposition and likes being compared to a king.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
Is there another way to describe Trump’s repeated flouting of the law imposing a commercial ban on TikTok? That statute may not be wholesome or necessary, but its provisions are clear and have been upheld by the Supreme Court. Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE minions have also ignored the law to try to dismantle agencies and offices created by Congress, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Institute of Peace.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
Trump imposing yet another travel ban that mainly targets Muslim and brown people was one of the least surprising developments of the first 100 days of his second term. His attempts to deport legal permanent residents–who often happen to be Muslim or brown–solely because of their speech have been only a little less surprising.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
How else would you describe ICE raids across American cities, which should only escalate now that the budget-busting reconcilation bill will vastly increase that agency’s power?
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
Trump illegally took command of the California National Guard and deployed it in Los Angeles without the consent of California’s government, Judge Charles Breyer found in a ruling since stayed on appeal. During a June hearing, Breyer commented that this limit of presidential authority represented “the difference between a constitutional government and King George.”
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
If we may consider ICE a militarized agency–which seems fair enough, given how often its personnel have been showing up in uniforms and with weapons as if an L.A. swap meet were Fallujah–then you can consider Trump guilty of this charge. ICE’s leadership, in turn, keeps acting and speaking as if their mission is far too important to be held up by the usual legal niceties.
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
Tariffs are taxes, even if American customers don’t pay them directly to the government, and the U.S. Court for International Trade found in May that the 1977 law that Trump has cited did not give him authority to impose them.
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
The Trump administration has repeatedly argued that unauthorized immigrants–a status that it alone gets to determine–are not entitled to the due-process rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
This administration sees fit to deport those alleged unauthorized immigrants to foreign hellholes like El Salvador’s CECOT.
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
Trump’s attempt to vacate the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship with an executive order is a grotesque attack on a fundamental part of our republic–one that the Supreme Court has yet to throw out as the unconstitutional trash that it is.
President Trump has not, however, “dissolved Representative Houses” or “refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected.” And the time is coming near for Americans once again to vote for their representatives–which, in two of the original 13 colonies named on the Declaration, my home state of New Jersey and my adopted state of Virginia, happens not next November but this fall in statewide elections. Protest and organize now, but do not neglect your opportunity then to instruct this government that it does not have the consent of you, the governed.
#13Colonies #13States #Constitution #DeclarationOfIndependence #DonaldTrump #FourthOfJuly #History #IndependenceDay #indictment #July4 #KingGeorgeIII #NewJerseyElections #NoKings #politics #PresidentTrump #VirginiaElections
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