I remember having to say the flag salute in high school and thinking, “What hypocrisy, liberty and justice for all,” is. It clearly wasn’t true then, and over the years, it has become even more of a challenge for the ideals of American democracy to become a reality for “We the people.”
Yet over the same 50 years, there have been some significant strides to accomplish the more perfect union, until lately. There has been a hard stop on the forward progress of liberty and justice with the kind of tyranny the founding fathers warned us about– by name, Trump.
The idea of real democracy is an anathema to the Orange Tyrant, who thinks he is the CEO of America Inc. A man whose corruption and grifts have diminished the nation in the eyes of the world, and the true patriots who are resisting the MAGA fascists and billionaires. Now, after 250 years of the American experiment, this clown has shown all of us the flaws and imperfections of the union―and it’s not pretty, polite, or even democratic.
The idea of a new kind of government after centuries of kings, emperors, and popes was the Enlightenment, or Age of Reason, an intellectual and cultural movement in 17th- and 18th-century Europe. It championed reason, empirical evidence, and individual liberty over tradition and faith. This era reshaped Western civilization, laying the groundwork for modern democracy, religious tolerance, and the separation of church and state. Donald J. Trump is the antithesis of this.
These are the ideals embedded in the Declaration of Independence, which I have chosen to reprint in full in this issue, as a reminder of the meaning of the Fourth of July. It’s not about the flags, the fireworks, or the barbecue. It is about the resistance to tyranny. And if you take the time to read the causes for which independence was declared in 1776, the injuries and usurpations resemble much of what this current Orange Tyrant has done of late.
However, democracies are vulnerable to tyranny. Historically, ancient Athens (circa 508 B.C.) is widely recognized as the birthplace of democracy, pioneering the concept of direct citizen rule. However, it was a city-state rather than a modern nation-state, and it heavily restricted its voting rights to male citizens. And it ended the way many democracies have ended, with a war and the rise of a demagogue creating an oligarchy.
The Roman Republic similarly lasted for four centuries with a senate and assemblies, much of which our own republic is modeled after, even down to the government architecture. Yet, it fell to the conspiracy between the ultra-rich and strongman generals. The Roman Republic fell between 133 and 27 B.C. due to wealth inequality, institutional gridlock, and the rise of warlords (private armies not controlled by the senate). This systemic breakdown allowed ambitious generals to use private armies to seize power, ultimately replacing the Republic’s complex constitutional democracy with the autocracy of the Roman Empire.
It didn’t happen overnight, but a slow erosion of equal rights among the citizens, benefiting the monied upper class, slowly eroded the republic. And yes, the Roman Republic wasn’t perfect either, as it had a robust slave population. The Founding Fathers of this country were well-read and educated on Roman history and knew of the pitfalls of that republic. The rise of tyranny, which is why we have so many laws to distribute power and protect the American people against tyranny– it’s worked, sort of, until now.
The American Bill of Rights was specifically written into law to protect against the abuses of tyranny, and the expanded amendments were to perfect it.
Clearly, anyone who has witnessed the last half-century of American history can see that there has been a decline that is similar to both Athens and Rome. The rise of the warrior military culture, the overseas wars that have bled the treasury, the injustices at home, the decline of the American middle class, and the rise of the billionaires. All of these are the recipe for the collapse of the republic unless there’s a significant course correction.
On this, the 250th anniversary of our nation, this celebration needs to be about resistance to tyranny, not more circuses on the White House lawn. No more distractions from the impending revelations of the Epstein files that will, along with a long list of other crimes, lead to the impeachment of a sitting president. Something that should have happened twice before, except for the cowardice of some Republican senators.
And yet still, the actual idea of democracy, as much as people say they are loyal to it, is actually rare to find amongst our civil society of non-profit organizations and corporations. Think for a moment of the organizations you belong to or donate to that have boards of directors that are selected by the leadership of that organization by status or donations. Very rarely do the members get to vote for who is going to lead the organization. The neighborhood councils struggle with it because few know how to legislate, public schools don’t teach civics any longer, and school councils are never empowered to challenge the top-down authority of LAUSD.
The city councils are often influenced by corruption or graft, and cities like Los Angeles are just so big and complex that the average citizen doesn’t even know where to find city hall or the department that they need. And even still, the various citizen commissions that control these departments don’t answer to the people but to the mayor. And for the most part, the citizens of LA, like in most large cities, don’t have a clue how their city is structured or who is in charge.
It would be a far different city if there were citizen assemblies with elected delegates to act as a counter-balance to the city council. And would fulfill the promise of bringing the government closer to the people. Currently, the LA City Council can’t even figure out how to add ten members to the city council proposal for the new charter.
So here we are getting ready to celebrate the nation’s founding with the words “All men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights,” and I’m wondering just how many of you understand what “unalienable rights” mean?