As Americans proudly and loudly commemorated the historical signing of the Declaration of Independence from the autocratic rule of King George, it was ironic that our wannabe American King was signing his Big Beautiful Bill, a law which further diminishes the freedom, justice, and equality the Founding Fathers hoped to achieve.
Just as King George III declared war upon the colonies for what he called “open and avowed rebellion,” and called upon British loyalists to “disclose and make known all treasons and traitorous conspiracies,” the current President of the United States has similarly declared a political war against all those who oppose his power and who refuse to pledge their loyalty, not to the Constitution, but solely to him. Like King George, he has divided the electorate, calling upon American citizens to turn against each other politically, socially, and economically to consolidate unbridled power.
He signed into law his Big Beautiful Bill, a financial boon to America’s wealthiest but a bill of goods paid by America’s most vulnerable with increased poverty, suffering, and lost lives.
He bragged “Promises made, promises kept,” after signing a bill that cruelly reneged on his promise to protect Medicaid. His bill will cause at least 17 million Americans to lose their health coverage, according to the Washington Post.
Instead, he has allocated billions of dollars toward immigration enforcement measures that have already proved exorbitant, cruel, unlawful, and arbitrary. Or, in the words of the Founding Fathers, he has obstructed “the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither.” It’s already clear to American farmers that migrants are vital to American agriculture.
He has reduced America to a veritable police state by empowering Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, the national guard, U.S. marines, local police and even neighbors to aid in the arrest, detention, and deportation of both illegal immigrants and U.S. protesters without due process. Indeed, Trump’s response to protestors in Los Angeles may as well have prompted this grievance from the Founding Fathers: “He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.”
He has threatened, intimidated, bullied, and attacked politicians, legislators, judges, and corporations that have participated in the prosecution of his crimes, or that have opposed his executive orders, policies, political ambitions, frivolous lawsuits, and blatant lies.
He has attempted to undermine law firms that prosecuted him for his crimes or represented his political adversaries, by restricting their access to government buildings and cancelling government contracts with the firms’ clients.
He has sued media outlets that he considers political adversaries, and he’s stalled government approval for media mergers unless they capitulate to his demands.
He has arrested and transported to jurisdictions amenable to deportation protestors and activists opposed to the President’s policies. He has deported immigrants to foreign prisons and to lawless places where their lives are endangered. He has delayed or defied court orders that overruled illegal deportations and detainments.
He has turned a nation, which once proudly stood as a beacon of freedom, opportunity, and compassion, that welcomed the oppressed–“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” — into a detention prison aptly called Alligator Alcatraz.
As part of his racist agenda, ICE has racially profiled Latinos for arrest, detention, and deportation without just cause. His military has closed the border to refugees and asylum seekers fleeing violence and persecution. Meanwhile, he has welcomed white South African “refugees” claiming they face discrimination and violence at home, despite denials by the South African government.
He signed an executive order, on Martin Luther King Day, ending federal Diversity, Equity, and Equity programs. He has threatened and financially penalized businesses and schools that support DEI programs designed to redress two centuries of systematic racial exclusion and inequality.
He has opposed the teaching of critical race theory or any classroom discussion that makes white students aware of, or uncomfortable about, past or present racial discrimination in America.
He has withheld government funding to universities that practice and protect free speech, free thought, and free assembly when curriculum, staff, or students oppose the president’s policies.
He has signed an executive order to impose patriotic education upon school children as a means of indoctrinating them to view American history and policies in a strictly jingoistic light.
The Founding Fathers duly noted that “mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
Indeed, while Americans celebrate America’s great fight for independence, I fear we no longer recognize the repression that ignited it, understand the freedom gained by it, nor possess the resolve to continue it.
Thomas Cangelosi is a retired teacher who lives in Avon
