On this 243rd anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, are we still an independent, democratic Republic? There’s room for doubt.
The 45th president is hosting a Fourth of July celebration for himself worthy of Kim Jong-Un or Nero. instead of remembering the founders of the Republic and the patriots who fought to make it possible, he has taken over the people’s Mall in Washington for his cult of personality.
The traditional festivities, including patriotic performances and fireworks, will go on but have been elbowed off center stage to make room for a campaign rally by El Presidente in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Many of the seats are reserved for VIPs admitted by tickets available only from the White House.
They are presumably reserved for Trump fans guaranteed to applaud as enthusiastically as the crowd for one of Moscow’s May Day parades. Trump oligarchs, enriched by his tax cuts at the expense of the bottom 90%, will surely be thick upon the ground and have got a better reason to cheer than the common folk..
A flyover by Air Force One and other military hardware will remind us that Citizen One is flying high, but will disrupt air traffic in and out of Reagan airport for over an hour. Ground traffic will also be impeded for lesser attendees, previously known as The People. A massive security presence will restrict movement for simple souls seeking a non-partisan summer celebration of the nation’s founding. In short, a good time will be had by the well-connected few.
Lest we regard this as an aberration, Trump’s Supreme Court delivered a pre-July Fourth reminder that those in power decide who rules, not the people. This is the self-evident truth of Trumpism. In Rucho v. Common Cause, the court declared that blatantly partisan, gerrymandered districts in Maryland and North Carolina were fine with them.
Districts clearly designed to allow the party in power to pick the voters they want rather than giving voters the ability to pick the representatives they want is swell. According to the Robbers Court, oh sorry, the Roberts Court, corrupting elections for partisan advantage is not a Constitutional issue, so courts should henceforth turn a blind eye to the practice. You know, lower court chimps, see no evil.
As the Mall fills with American citizens who originated in every country on earth, Trump is unlikely to include in his address Gen. George Washington’s toast at the farewell dinner for his victorious officers, “May America be an asylum to the persecuted of the earth.” Instead Trump seems certain to rededicate America to a policy of persecution to keep aliens away, unless they possess the pure American (that is, German, Czech, Scottish, Slovene) blood of the Trump dynasty.
Tomorrow, after the Fourth’s fundraising rally is over, business as usual will resume — the President’s brick by brick dismantling of the Constitutional order, aided and abetted by executive power groupie Attorney General Barr, a cabinet corrupt enough to put the Nixon and Harding administrations to shame, a judiciary straight out of the totalitarian playbook with show trials coming soon, and a Senate too compromised or terrified to ever cross Dear Leader.
Will an opposition leader arise to defeat Trump sixteen months from now, despite all the advantages of amorality, incumbency, emoluments, wealthy donors whose nests need further feathering, and Putin’s black ops? On the evidence so far, help is not on the way. Enjoy what’s left of American Democracy while you can. Oooo. Ahhh. Fireworks. But not Chinese, we hope. Tariffs, you know.