I write this on July 4, 2024, as Americans celebrate the birth of what would come to be called the United States of America, the USA. The birth took place on July 4, 1776, when delegates assembled in Congress adopted “the unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States of America.” These were the quasi-autonomous territories into which the ruling British had divided the vast lands they had conquered over time. They were mostly autonomous in the sense that they could govern their territories as long as the final world on the mode of governance was recognized as residing in the hands of the British King, George III, and his Parliament.
The people of the states rebelled against this arrangement and fought what history calls the “Wars of Independence.” George Washington was the most prominent and effective general, defeating the British forces in a series of battles and being elected President of the United States. He could have become king, but he chose to strictly follow the terms of the Declaration of Independence. It is worth quoting the beginning of the Declaration in detail.
“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political ties which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal position to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
This separation was to be made from Great Britain and its king, and it was made for good reason. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Those words were written 248 years ago, and it took more than two centuries for the use of the term “men” in the Declaration to include women, landless people, and people other than white people. However, in its majority decision on July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States, commonly referred to as SCOTUS, issued a decision that went significantly against the intent of the Declaration of Independence.
The ruling came in a case before the court that challenged the Justice Department’s claim that the insurrection encouraged by then-President Donald Trump was intended to prevent the validation of Joe Biden’s victory as the country’s successor.
Kevin D Roberts, president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, calls the Supreme Court decision a “second American Revolution, one that will remain bloodless if the left allows it to.” The policy plan that the Heritage Foundation helped coordinate with like-minded groups is called Project 2025. Some of the authors of the plan served in Donald Trump’s first administration or are being considered for office if he wins another term on November 5, 2024, when Americans go to the polls to elect their next president.
Several provisions of Project 2025 have been loudly supported by Trump as he has traveled the country to encourage his supporters to vote for him. He has said he would pass laws that would allow shoplifters to be shot; the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be executed for treason; and he has refused to commit to nonviolence if he is defeated in the November election. He has repeatedly dehumanized his political opponents and immigrants, using terms like “vermin” and “poisoning the blood of our country,” which echo language used by Hitler and other authoritarian leaders. Although Trump has not officially endorsed Project 2025, there is significant overlap between the Heritage Foundation’s proposed plan of action and the promises he has made in his campaign speeches. He proposed plans to centralize power in the executive branch and eliminate legal and personnel constraints from his first term.
The Biden campaign has highlighted the dangers that voters would pose to the country and its political system if Trump were reelected. James Singer, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, said that on July 4, America would mark the anniversary of its birth nearly two and a half centuries ago, when it “declared independence from a tyrannical king, and now Trump and his allies want to do it at our expense. On January 6, 2021, they proudly stormed our Capitol to overturn an election lost fairly and honestly — something even the Confederacy couldn’t accomplish — now they dream of a violent revolution to destroy the very idea of America.” The reference to the Confederacy was, of course, to the groups of states that fought Abraham Lincoln’s Union to prevent the elimination of slavery from the country.
The question of whether the US president is above the law is an important one for the world because the country has the most powerful military in the world, which has been used time and again to wage war against those seen as working against the country’s interests. This has happened on the Korean Peninsula, in Vietnam, in Iraq and in Afghanistan. That the country has not won any of these wars is beside the point. They may not have been fought to win, but they have exacted a heavy toll in lives and property in the countries where the US has intervened. Washington has been involved in Afghanistan for two decades and has created a country that has become ungovernable. While the Supreme Court’s July 1 decision granted unlimited powers to the president as head of the executive branch of government, a provision in the functioning of the legislative branch provides that congressional approval must be obtained before foreign wars can be launched.
The commentary that followed the July 1 decision took stock of remarks made by some of the justices during their Senate confirmation hearings for their Supreme Court nominations. All said they supported the idea that the president was not above the law. The New York Times The justice wrote a powerful editorial in his commentary on the decision. “In the very week the nation celebrates its founding, the Court has undermined the raison d’être of the American Revolution, giving presidents what one dissenting justice called a ‘lawless zone’ in which to operate, taking a step toward restoring the monarchy that the Declaration of Independence had rejected.”
