Today is July 4, America’s (Happy?) Birthday. It is the most significant and universally celebrated American holiday, perennially serving as a reminder of our Nation’s systemic aversion to autocracy or monarchical rule and its ardent preference for an established Democratic Republic. The Declaration of Independence (from the English King) was officially adopted by the Continental Congress on that celebrated date, in 1776, officially giving birth to our new independent Nation. Americans, of every political stripe, annually celebrate this historically significant radical and enlightened break from the historic European-style of monarchical rule. We are of the view that its observance is patriotically related to America’s Memorial Day, the latter, commemorating those who gave their lives in service to the Nation.
It appears that prior assumptions of the permanent endurance of this established mode of governance, viz., “by and for the People,” for which Americans have fought and died, at the time of its current birthday, are disturbingly being called into question.
The contemporary governance by a singularly irresponsible, egocentric, and demonstrably incapable Chief of State, characterized by uncontained hubris, autocratic leanings, and an empirical lack of empathy or moral compass. Mainstream Americans, terrified by his arbitrary, autocratic policies and unconventional actions, are disconcerted by his unprecedented rejection of the Constitution and apparent disregard for the traditional American way of life. Donald Trump’s defeat of Joseph Biden appears to have resulted, metaphysically, as we in the defeat of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, avatars of the Nation’s avowed democratic character.
It is difficult to happily join a National birthday celebration when the Nation’s Chief Executive has declared his intention to be a dictator, has arrogated to himself the right to legislate and adjudicate ( regardless of the foundational “Separation of Powers'” provided by the Constitution) by his unprecedented Executive Orders, signed with the egoistic flourish of his velvet-tipped pen; even to the extent of superceding the arduous, constitutional mandated protocol regarding constitutional amendment, ( birthright citizenship),
It presently appears difficult, in spirit, to celebrate the unique democratic nature of a present government whose Chief Executive expends millions of taxpayer dollars to autocratically raise a Gestapo-like masked army to infiltrate the peaceful lives of immigrants, arrest, jail, and banish them to foreign torture prisons, who autocraticalkly and illegally uses the military to enforce his decrees, who continues to engage in the perverse use of the office ofthe Presidency to obscenely enrich himself and his family, in irrefutable contravention of the constitution’s “Emoluments Clause,” and whose perverse policies are inclusive of “retribution” against his political enemies and the officials who dutifully prosecuted him for his heinous crimes, and for his arbitrary destruction, without Congressional participation, of our Nation’s utilitarian Federal Civil Service, most notably our existentially vital Health and Medical Agencies, ignorantly boasted of his imperial authority by singly imposing large arbitrary tariffs on America’s trading partners, thus increasing, rather than reducing, as promised, domestic prices inclusive of items like food and medicine, championed the perverse criminalization of Woman’s natural right to elect an abortion, fails to adequately assist beleaguered Ukraine with necessary arms for that democracy’s defense against despotic Russian aggression, challenged the policies and very existence of Universities and other institutions of learning, expresse his Napoleanic desire to take over our friendly neighbor, Canada (” a 51st State”) and Denmark’s Greenland, delusionally attempst to change the geographic name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” conduct of intimate relationships with America’s autocratic enemies;l and, on the domestic front, purloining Government Top Secret documents and irresponsibly rendering them publicly accessible by bizarrely chosen storage at his Mar-A-Largo bathroom, personal responsibility for many-faceted instances of voter interference, denial of certified voting results, fomenting and supporting a violent insurrection and thereafter, pardoning the criminal participants engaged by him. tactically making false demagogic promises of ubiquitous benefits to citizens, together with multi-dumpsters full of violations of societal norms, whose listing would exceed the conventional limits of the stereotypical”blog.”
It is our request that Donald Trump, whose publis statement, relative to the many hundreds of young soldiers buried at Arlington Cemetery as “suckers and losers,” while shamefully asking: What was in it for them?” be excluded from the list of Presidents deservedly honored on President’s Day. We would also respectfully and earnestly request permission to forego our usual participation in this year’s Fourth of July celebrations.
-p.
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