The Fourth of July offers a grand teachable moment for educators, especially progressive ones. As an assignment for my summer sociology classes, I would typically have students read Frederick Douglas' "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"; listen to Paul Robeson sing "Ballad for Americans"; and ask them to identify what a citizen's duty is as explicitly mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. This assignment would likely get me reprimanded, if not fired, today. Yet the liberating truth revealed in these radical works is more vital today than ever. As America is dangerously pushed closer than ever toward fascism, knowledge of our multi-racial revolutionary heritage forms a rampart against encroaching tyranny. Such knowledge - now directly undermined by abolition of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion programs - is necessary, but insufficient. Action is required, and that is where our duty as prescribed in our nation's foundational document comes in.
Just about everyone is familiar with its opening statement about the self-evident truths that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. But far too few pay attention to, let alone act upon, what follows: that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such forms, as to them shall most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Yet the 56 revolutionary signers who unanimously adopted this Declaration did not stop there, but explicitly amplified the urgency to confront and remove tyranny by making it a call to duty by the people:
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
The Spirit of '76 animating these sentiments is echoed today in the massive anti-Trump protests of 2025. Millions have taken to the streets of America to declare in the spirit, and almost the very words, of our nation's founders that the history of the present President of the United States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having a direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world:
1. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice. In defiance of judicial orders to halt illegal deportations, he sent hundreds of immigrants to concentration camps abroad, and threatens to deport thousands more without due process; within a month of his second presidency, he fired prosecutors involved in cases against him or the January 6 MAGA rioters.
2. He has made judges dependent on his will alone. To remove judicial objections to his despotic immigration policies, he fired scores of immigration judges. He castigated a federal judge who blocked his unlawful deportation scheme a "radical Left lunatic" and called for his disbarment and impeachment.
3. He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. Foremost among these new repressive agencies is DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), established on this first day in office and responsible for thousands of unwarranted terminations and the dismantling of agencies long hated by the Far Right.
4. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. He sent hundreds of US Marines and thousands of National Guard troops into Los Angeles without approval by the Governor or Mayor in response to sustained protests against his mass deportations.
5. He has effected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power. He has bombed Iran without authorization of Congress and in violation of international law. In his rambling warmongering speech to West Point graduates, he stated that the job of US Armed Forces is "to spread democracy to everybody around the world at the point of a gun", and its core mission is "crushing America's adversaries, killing America's enemies".
6. He has gutted the nation's safety net and cultural life by slashing funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid; abolishing the Department of Education; decimating the workforce at the Social Security Administration, Housing and Urban Development, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Labor Relations Board. Voice of America, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Environmental Protection Agency, National Institutes of Health, Federal Communication Commission, US Postal Service, US Peace Institute, and US Peace Corps; dismantling the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts and Institute for Museums and Library Services; and drastically cutting support for Head Start, federal student loans, Fulbright scholarships. science research, climate change protection. child labor protection. federal election assistance, public broadcasting, and nearly every other federal expenditure, except for the bloated military budget that he increased to $1 trillion for the next fiscal year, which, when combined with the disastrous fiscal effects of his One Big Beautiful Bill, will inflate the national debt by over $3 trillion through 2034.
The verdict against President Trump, like that against King George, is incontrovertible:
A Prince or President, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Amen.
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