To echo another commenter, this article is a harrowing read—particularly the litany of reasons for declaring independence:
The Declaration pronounces these rights to be so important that it’s worth overthrowing a government over them. But one should not undertake revolution against a tyrannical government lightly, the Declaration says, going on to provide a massive litany of complaints as justification. In modern times, the full list was considered to be the boring part of this document, lacking the vim and vigor of “we hold these truths to be self-evident” and other such bars from the preamble. But this year, it’s become a… bracing read.
Listed among the reasons to boot the British monarch are:
- “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences”
- “Obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither”
- “erect[ing] a multitude of New Offices, and sen[ding] hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people”
- keeping “among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures”
- attempting “to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.”
- “cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world”
- “depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury”
- “excit[ing] domestic insurrections amongst us”
This was visceral:
As Donald Trump’s imperial presidency rolls forward across the wreckage of Congress on tank treads greased by the Supreme Court...
And it ends with this:
The Declaration of Independence has some notes about “the Right of the People to alter or to abolish” its existing government “and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
But that was another time, right? Surely nobody wants to take the Founding Fathers’ original words literally. Their original meaning and original intent can’t just be superimposed on American life today, not when American values are very different from the values of 1776. In Trump’s America, the national ethos is simply a boot on your neck, forever.