Tuesday is July 4 and a time to line your walkways with Old Glory. It is a time for parades and red, white and blue-themed picnics, and lighting up the night sky with dazzling fireworks. And it is a time to pause and appreciate the freedoms we enjoy as a result of some remarkable events that took place in Pennsylvania's State House 241 years ago. Today we call this revered brick building Independence Hall because it was here that we declared ourselves free from the tyranny of British rule.
But as we are often reminded, freedom isn't free. It is something that must be guarded and fought for, and this nation has done so rigorously through almost two-and-a-half centuries of bloody wars and fiery internal conflicts. The key is to remain ever vigilant against threats of every kind to our democratic way of life.
These threats don't always announce themselves in the form of a flotilla sailing up the Chesapeake to conquer Baltimore in 1814, or a surprise attack by Japanese fighter planes at Pearl Harbor in 1941. Sometimes they arrive as bogus lists of communists in government and the military waved in the air by a Wisconsin senator in the early 1950s, or in the fevered tweets of a current president who lacks any sense of history or even eighth-grade civics concepts like the separation of powers, freedom of the press, and free and unimpeded elections.
This most recent threat to our freedoms hasn't arrived on cat-like feet, but is made crushingly apparent almost daily in the 140-character rants of an increasingly desperate and dangerous man. If you doubt me, answer this series of questions:
What other president has openly criticized the character of federal judges and our judicial system as they rule unfavorably on his unconstitutional executive orders?
What other president has fired an assistant attorney general and an FBI director when their investigations of him and his campaign staff have proved threatening to the legitimacy of his election?
What other president has dared to ban certain journalists from rallies and press briefings and called the free press the "enemy of the people," a phrase once favored by Marxists?
What other president has openly violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution that bans activities that are self-dealing and self-enriching? This happens when taxpayers subsidize Donald Trump's nearly weekly visits to his resorts and when foreign diplomats curry favor by staying at his International Hotel in Washington. Between November and February, Saudi Arabia alone spent $270,000 there.
What other president has revealed secret intelligence to an unfriendly alien power in the Oval Office?
What other president has attempted to set up a back channel to the Kremlin that would have had his staff secretly communicating with the Russians by using their embassy's encoded and secure facilities?
What other president would skip his daily security briefings in favor of watching "Fox and Friends"?
I am obviously troubled by Trump and his radical agenda, but even more so by a Congress and Senate that are complicit in our country's slow drift toward plutocracy and authoritarianism. These politicians have placed tax breaks, gutting the EPA and Dodd-Frank, and denying health care coverage to millions of Americans above the welfare of their fellow citizens. Their guilt is shared by the 30 percent of voters who irrationally continue to shrug at behavior that would have triggered hysteria and calls for impeachment if credited to Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.
So, enjoy your hot dogs and fireworks on the Fourth, but also prepare for a new kind of America as we normalize conduct that would have sent the Founding Fathers running for the exits at Independence Hall some 241 years ago.
Frank Batavick writes from Westminster. His column appears Fridays. Email him at fjbatavick@gmail.com.
