Happy New Year! Tomorrow we enter the year of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. There will be much to review and discuss about America’s Revolution (I haven’t watched the Ken Burns documentary yet but look forward to it); the meaning of our Declaration and both the ideals and shortcomings that it contains; the ups and downs of our two-and-a-half-century national history; and how these things bear on our current situation.
So, I would like, today and tomorrow, to undertake a little exercise with respect to the Declaration. Today, I take it up as a kind of template for mapping the incredibly disturbing actions of Trump and his minions over this year—a year of anti-Revolution, of Reaction, in many ways unprecedented. Tomorrow, I would like to reflect on some things we might say about the renewal and extension of the Declarations ideals that I hope 2026 will afford us.
One of the remarkable aspects of the Declaration is that it presents an argument, impelled by “decent respect to the opinions of mankind,” to justify the independence of the American colonies. Its list of grievances against King George III provides our template. Here I give the Declaration’s text in black, followed by my annotations in blue:
- He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. Is there any law or court order that Trump won’t violate, if he thinks it will be to his gain? The emoluments clause of the Constitution, the posse comitatus act, and the set of acts specifically constraining the president in firing of federal employees particularly come to mind.
- He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. Substitute “Republicans in Congress” for “his Governors,” and could you have a better depiction of Trump’s relationship with the Legislative Branch? Fortunately, we are seeing some cracks in this MAGA monolith, as Trump’s popularity sinks and his temporizing regarding the Epstein files becomes more exasperating.
- He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. Trump & Co. have specifically targeted for retribution “blue cities” and Democratic states in any number of ways, most notably ICE operations and National Guard deployments.
- He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. The Administration’s gutting of public records and DOGE’s hatchet job on federal agencies, dramatically compromising their ability to gather information, have an analogous effect.
- He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. See above: for all intents and purposes, the Republicans have almost totally abrogated Congress’s constitutional responsibilities. Mike Johnson’s adjourning of the House to avoid a vote on the Epstein files is a case in point.
- 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. Need we say more? There is no doubt that the US needed a revised immigration policy (and no doubt that the Republicans at Trump’s behest killed a bipartisan bill aiming for exactly that). But Trump is essentially destroying immigration wholesale (except for white South Africans) without concern about the impact on human lives or on our workforce.
- He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. To be sure, we can go back to Mitch McConnell’s unconscionable prevention of consideration of Merrick Garland’s appointment to the Supreme Court, and we’re seeing the ramifications of that in the far-right ideology of a significant portion of the court. In his first term, Republicans and Trump’s SCOTUS nominees made a mockery of the confirmation process. In this year, Pam Bondi has all but decimated the Justice Department and weaponized it against Trump’s enemies, while Kash Patel has wreaked havoc on the FBI.
- He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. In this year, Trump’s Administration has dragged its feet on any number of judicial orders, has actively defied others, and has quoted Andrew Jackson to the effect that the courts have no way to enforce their edicts, implying that they need not be followed. Worst of all, SCOTUS has given the president wide-ranging immunity and has almost always ruled — often on the shadow docket — to promote the so-called unitary executive theory. Trump’s “Will” — which is much more id than ego — has broad scope.
- He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. ICE, ICE, ICE; DOGE, DOGE, DOGE.
- He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. As noted above, National Guard and US Military deployments in violation of posse comitatus, based on fabrication of facts on the ground.
- He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. ICE, again, which is ever more brazen in its assaults, without any due process. Also, the unjustified, probably illegal, and certainly immoral strikes on Venezuelan boats.
- He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: Without attention to established authorities, Trump willy-nilly and unilaterally enacts irreversible damage, such as the destruction of the people’s East Wing of the White House.
- For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: Unwarranted National Guard deployments and the establishment, for all intents and purposes, of ICE “bases” in targeted locations, over the objections of state governors and mayors.
- For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: ICE is completely unaccountable. Trump pardoned nearly 1600 January 6 insurrectionists — some of whom have been rearrested for other crimes.
- For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: Trump has implemented indiscriminate tariffs and launched a set of trade wars, most of which have not gone well for the US. If we extend the idea of trade to include all forms of US intercourse with the world, we are witnessing a wholesale abandonment of any effort to play a stabilizing force in world affairs.
- For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: Tariffs are, of course, a kind of tax and were implemented without any legislative action.
- For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: See all of the references throughout these annotations to lack of due process.
- For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: Numerous immigrants have been deported to countries other than those of their origins, against their consent, without due process, and in many cases in direct violation of court orders.
- For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: OK, maybe not a neighboring province, but now, sadly, several US provinces, e.g., Florida, Texas, Missouri are in the lead on implementing the MAGA agenda and are willing co-conspirators in Trump’s efforts to steal the midterms through gerrymandering.
- For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: Just read Project 2025. This is the absolute goal of those behind Trump who are leveraging his narcissism for their own efforts to remake America in the image of Christian Nationalism, including the subjugation of women.
- For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. See above, esp. “Mike Johnson.”
- He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. Trump is President-as-Divider: he does not even pretend to be the president of the American people but constantly rages against those who oppose him. He enacts retribution against anyone he perceives as his enemy — e.g., James Comey, Letitia James, Adam Schiff, Elissa Slotkin, Mark Kelly, and more. He targets blue states for punishment and red states for reward.
- He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. Too much to say here, but look at the decimation of environmental protections; the joke that RFK, Jr. has made of HHS; the undercutting of FEMA; the destruction of the national research infrastructure; the attack, in league with his oligarchic buddies, on a free press; his destruction of the East Wing of the White House without proper review and authorization; his unlawful foisting of his own name onto institutions such as the Kennedy Center; and on and on.
- He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. While Trump has not engaged “large Armies” of foreign mercenaries, he has engaged foreign governments in his wholesale and illegal deportation of immigrants without due process. He has effectively “mercenerized,” if you’ll forgive the term, US foreign policy, especially with respect to (1) Ukraine, where he seems hell-bent on pleasing Putin for his own egotistical and lucrative gains, and (2) Gaza, where he sees not a repressed, suffering people but a real estate development opportunity.
- He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. Finally, we might say, a complaint without a clear analogy. Comments to the contrary are welcome.
- He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. Sadly the reference to Native Americans is, of course, the most disturbing utterance of our Declaration: out of sync with the ideal of human equality which frames the whole, and completely conditioned by what would later come to be known as “Manifest Destiny.” Of course, any acknowledgments of such shortcomings is deemed by Trump and MAGA as “woke,” anti-white ideology.
That said, clearly the first clause is fully applicable: “exciting domestic insurrection” is Trump’s middle name.
If you are a close reader of the Declaration, you will have realized that there is one grievance that I omitted. In include it here:
- He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions [of legislative bodies], to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. [Emphasis added.]
As we look to 2026, let us take hope from the ways we the people have risen up to assert those “Legislative powers” that are “incapable of Annihilation.” More on that tomorrow.
Affirming Democracy, Gathering Resistance 