July Fourth marked 249 years since the 13 American colonies rejected a British monarch and embraced freedom. But as we enter the first days of our 250th year on this Earth, it feels like we’re moving in the wrong direction.  

The Declaration of Independence was a bold (though clearly never fully realized) assertion of equality and democratic ideals. Thomas Jefferson wrote that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed” – the people of the United States would decide our own fate, not be anyone’s subjects.  

But in the past six months all three branches of government have done serious damage to those ideals. And in just the last few weeks we’ve seen our government repudiating the core values of the Declaration of Independence.

“For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.”  

The animating idea behind the American Revolution and the Constitution that eventually emerged was that people were in charge through representatives. President Donald Trump has not suspended our legislatures, but he has moved to sideline them and assume the power to legislate for himself.

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Last week alone saw the final endgame for USAID, dismantled by the president despite congressional authorization. The Department of Education is refusing to distribute billions of congressionally appropriated dollars to state schools. And the administration sued Los Angeles for refusing to use its own resources to aid ICE’s violent deportation arrests.   

In just the last few weeks, the Department of Justice charged a member of Congress after an oversight visit to an immigration detention facility and federal agents handcuffed Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., for asking Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem questions at a press conference.   

“He has obstructed the Administration of Justice… He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone…”  

We have no rights if the president is not bound to follow the law, which is why the founders recognized the importance of an independent judiciary.  

Yet President Trump has brazenly broken laws and violated the Constitution. Numerous lower court judges, including those appointed by the president himself, have excoriated DOJ lawyers for stonewalling their orders and violating the basic due process protections guaranteed by the Constitution. In some cases, the administration has appeared to openly defy the courts, like when they refused to stop deportations to a torture prison in El Salvador.  

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More alarming, Congress and the Supreme Court majority seem eager to help. Two weeks ago, President Trump’s former defense attorney and current senior DOJ official, Emil Bove, received a friendly hearing from the Senate Judiciary Committee considering his nomination to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. This despite a whistleblower describing him openly contemplating telling courts “f— you.”   

“For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.”  

The founders were aggrieved by Britain hauling people away from their communities on specious charges. Yet here we are again.   

Although the Supreme Court prevented the administration from sending more people to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison under the Alien Enemies Act, they have allowed 238 Venezuelans, three-quarters with no criminal record, to languish there since March. And just two weeks ago, the court blessed the deportation of others to countries they’ve never set foot in without a chance to challenge that action.

“He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.”  

Freedom is hard to come by when those in power can sic the military on the people. The colonists kicked out the British for this offense, yet President Trump federalized the California National Guard without the consent of the California government, then brought in active-duty U.S. Marines, and then even more Marines after the questionable justification of civil unrest was over.   

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“He has… sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”  

The singular hallmark of this administration’s first six months has been the use of government power to harass the president’s perceived enemies.  

The administration escalated its war on Harvard University. It forced the resignation of the president of the University of Virginia under threat of federal funding cuts. President Trump called for legal action against the New York Times and CNN for their reporting on the Iran bombing campaign that contradicted the president’s preferred story. Secretary Noem called for an investigation into CNN for reporting on a public ICE-tracking app. And by withholding approval of a merger, the administration got Paramount to pony up $16 million to his interests to settle a thoroughly meritless lawsuit over “60 Minutes” editorial decisions. 

All that was in just one week.  

If President Trump and his allies are going to repudiate the Declaration of Independence, then we need to use the 250th year of our country to peacefully but fiercely embrace the revolutionary spirit. 

We would hardly be the first to take those values of equality and freedom and challenge America to do better. At Seneca Falls, the delegates calling for women’s equality modeled their Declaration of Sentiments on the Declaration of Independence. 

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Dr. Martin Luther King’s most famous speech, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, lodged its dream in the words of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.”   

The government rang in this July 4th by testing our commitment to our nation’s founding ideals of equality and government of, by and for the people. But that ideal is still worth fighting for peacefully – in the courts, at the ballot box and in the streets. Not to restore any of the flawed institutions that came before and during this administration, but to build a more just version of America that is truer to its ideals.