On the eve of Independence Day 2025, the President of the United States went to Iowa, held a rally, and declared, without any reservation, that he hates Democrats. He then repeated, “I really do, I hate them. I cannot stand them, because I really believe they hate our country, if you want to know the truth.”
His defenders say that he was talking about members of Congress and not all Democrats but members of Congress are merely the representatives of the people, voted in to be their proxies in our form of government. Donald Trump was actually repeating an old theme introduced when he kicked off his campaign for reelection on June 18, 2019, in Orlando, Florida, where he told his MAGA audience that Democrats were “out to destroy you and out to destroy this country.” No president in the history of this nation has openly declared that they hate members of a party that makes up half of the country. And no previous American public or media would tolerate such a declaration. Trump’s damage to the unity of America has been so effective, his assault on normality so overwhelming, that we are no longer responding properly.
We would never allow a high school principal to say they hated half of their students, or a police chief to say they hated half of their law enforcement officers, or a general to say they hated half their troops. They would be dismissed from their positions and pressured to make a public apology. We have allowed one malignant personality to shatter our most treasured cultural norms and national symbols – a president groping and kissing the American Flag for crowd approval, the Speaker of the House giving the president his gavel at the signing ceremony for the Big Beautiful Bill on the 4th of July – an apt symbol of Congressional abdication of power and its status as a co-equal branch of government. Likewise, the president long-ago declared that the Supreme Court should recuse itself from anything Trump-related. Proof of the first president in our history who does not believe in our form government.
It has been maddening, as a career military officer, to witness someone ascend to the position of Commander in Chief who is mentally unfit to obey his oath of office. There have been ample examples of his unfitness: his fraudulent business activities, his sexual assault, his 34-count felony conviction, stealing classified documents, lying to the world (Helsinki) about proven U.S. intelligence, lobbying for an enemy state to re-enter the G-8, while that enemy was engaged in cyber warfare against the United States, and withholding arms and intelligence from an ally at war with that same enemy. He is the first president to be impeached twice, the second impeachment, for inciting an insurrection to overthrow the government of the United States. His attorney general, secretary of education, and secretary of labor all resigned rather than be part of an administration that did not believe in the peaceful transfer of power. Our founding father gave the world perhaps its greatest gift—for the first time in human history a man voluntarily stepped away from all power due to the will of the people. Our GOP leadership needs to study his humility and sense of duty or we are going to lose this Republic.
READ: Reasons to Celebrate the Fourth of July
In 1776, George Washington retreated from defeat in New York, through New Jersey; supplies and morale were low. American soldiers were poorly clothed and near starvation. A third of his soldiers were sick. His troops were ill-equipped. Washington formulated a plan to cross the frozen Delaware on Christmas Eve, transporting 2,400 men, 18 cannons, 50 horses and numerous supply wagons. When they arrived in New Jersey, they huddled next to fires to keep from freezing. Already exhausted and cold they marched to Trenton. The rest is history – a history put in jeopardy on January 6th, 2021, when a tyrant tried to overthrow the government. The GOP leadership that orchestrated his acquittal for insurrection now resembles a new nobility chanting “God save the king.” Half of our people have become subjects of derision and hatred from a would-be-monarch. When Donald Trump ordered a military parade on his birthday, millions of Americans took to the streets in what they called “No Kings” rallies.
Our founding fathers summarized their complaints in a Declaration of Independence that accused King George of:
- Refusing to assent to laws necessary for the public good
- Calling together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable and distant
- Endeavored to prevent naturalization of foreigners
- Raising the conditions for new appropriation of lands
- Obstructed the administration of justice
- Made judges dependent on his will alone
- Has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people
- Has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures
- Has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power
- Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us
- For cutting off trade with all parts of the world
- For imposing taxes on us without our consent
- For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury
- For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses
- Altering fundamentally the forms of our governments
- He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us
They declared that “A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” The authors of our Constitution concluded with, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
Their sacrifice, their commitment and their victory over the tyranny of one ego, is the reason we celebrate, the reason we display fireworks against the darkness of a summer sky on the 4th of July.
