Happy Fireworks Day

 

I am writing this one on the fly. All findings and statements are backed up with a list of references at the end of this piece.

At the beginning of July, I found out like the rest of the nation, and later, the rest of the world of course, that for now, at least, we no longer live in a representative democracy. Oh sure, we still elect many of our leaders. Republican Gerrymandering notwithstanding. We can hear about candidates over our usual news outlets, and of course, the Internet. Sometimes we can vote for them, but are those candidates bound to follow the same laws we are? Forget it!

Remember the politician who bragged about being able to shoot someone on a busy city street and not lose any votes over it? Keep your eyes on the news cycle. We are living in his world now.

On July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution. According to the Associated Press, the ruling reflected a “muscular” view of presidential power. It left dissenting judges criticizing it as undermining a core democratic principle that no person is above the law. (2024).

As I said earlier in this piece, we live in Trump’s world now. If that sounds crazy, consider the things happening in the world we live in now.

The Republican party still supports a man who has been convicted of 34 felony counts of election fraud and obstruction of Justice in connection to the 2016 presidential election. The charges have been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by a jury of his peers. We knew all about the details of this case: years before it came to trial. Before he became a presidential candidate the ex-president enjoyed a lifestyle of philandry. It was how he ran through three sequential marriages.  Even before the payoffs occurred in 2016. (Business Insider, 2024).

This was the way that Mr. Trump worked. He had always seemed bent toward positions of power. It is probably why he warmed so well toward dictatorial overlords, such as Vladamir Putin, Kim Jong Um, and Xi Jinping. Though his closest aides and staff members from that first presidency would never recommend a Trump reentry into American politics., this is exactly what the Donald wants. He doesn’t just want the presidency. He wants an empire of his own. (CNN 2019).  

It is important to recount how Donald’s attorneys came to argue presidential immunity to the Supreme Court. On January 6, 2021, a mob of “oath keepers”, “proud boys” and stalwart supporters of a tyrannical despot who wouldn’t bend to the rule of constitutional law and peacefully transfer power to the rightful winner of the 2020 election, Joseph Biden.

Trump wouldn’t let a peaceful transition of power go lying down. On that morning, he addressed the vehement crowd of his supporters behind a thick, bulletproof glass enclosure, instructing them to march to the capitol building, where he promised he would meet them there.

What happened next, as they like to say, is history. Quoting the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) a well-respected news outlet, “…the attack didn’t come from nowhere. It was the culmination of a year of increasingly radical activity by a slew of extremists around the country.” As early as December 2019, the SPLC says, far-right groups “…mobilized against racial justice protests, COVID-19 prevention measures, and voting rights for all Americans, and were goaded on by the president and politicians on the right.” (2024).

I’m not going to spoil it for you. You can reference the article in the section below. I strongly suggest reading it (SPLC, 2024).

What I’m suggesting is that the events leading up to the January 6th insurrection, with the Supreme Court capitulating a Supreme Court decision that will forever bear upon our lives and the state of our democracy for a very long time.

I can’t call our last Fourth of July celebration an Independence Day. Let’s call it what it is. A fireworks day where we stupidly light incendiary devices believing it to be our patriotic duty to endanger ourselves and others. Like the members of that crowd of idiots that stormed the capitol steps on January 6, 2021. We will have to wait until a future court overturns Trump v. US.

Thank you for your attention.

References.

AP News. (2024). Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have broad immunity, dimming chance of a pre-election Trump trial. Retrieved July 5, 2024, from https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-trump-capitol-riot-immunity-2dc0d1c2368d404adc0054151490f542

CNN (2016). Trump: I could ‘shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters’.  Retrieved July 5, 2024, from https://www.cnn.com/2016/01/23/politics/donald-trump-shoot-somebody-support/index.html.

CNN (2019). 15 times Donald Trump praised authoritarian rulers. Retrieved July 5, 2024, from https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/02/politics/donald-trump-dictators-kim-jong-un-vladimir-putin/index.html

Business Insider (2024). A timeline of Donald Trump's three marriages, numerous rumored affairs, and sexual misconduct allegations https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-melania-stormy-daniels-affairs-marriages-timeline-2018-3

CNN (2023). 24 former Trump allies and aides who turned against him. Retrieved July 5, 2024, from https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/03/politics/donald-trump-former-allies-what-matters/index.html

SPLC (2024). The road to Jan. 6: a year of extremist mobilization.  Retrieved July 7, 2024, from https://www.splcenter.org/news/2021/12/30/road-jan-6-year-extremist-mobilization?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw-ai0BhDPARIsAB6hmP443ZgIKzbto_zyKS03R2qQF58v_FNvx33dw61rHl461JYsOHMFS2QaAiPDEALw_wcB