Opinion: Trump isn’t just betraying the Constitution, he’s betraying the Declaration of Independence.

Why Trump’s betrayal of American values goes deeper than just the Constitution, straight to the Declaration of Independence.

Coming up on Independence Day I’d like to say: I’m tired of talking about what is unconstitutional. I’d rather talk about what we should call un-Declarational.

I don’t mean we should stop fighting unconstitutional actions — I’m certainly tired of the parade of irrational — and unconstitutional — executive orders from the current Regime claiming congressional powers for the executive branch; the encouragement of various law enforcement agencies, fortified by masked mercenaries, to ignore the first, fourth, fifth, and fourteenth amendments; the absurd claim that they can suspend habeas corpus or birthright citizenship if they kind of feel like it. That’s all terrible.

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But what I’m tired of is calling things “unconstitutional” as though that will change anything.

I mean calling something “unconstitutional” just sounds — as I believe is their goal — procedural. Calling something unconstitutional sounds like a complaint, like a whine. That’s their point: they’re trying to make those of us who demand that the government follow the law seem like kids on a playground saying “no fair!” when they lose a kickball game. 

And I think we’ve reached a moment where the Constitution is mostly beside the point. The Constitution may or may not hold; I certainly hope it does, but as far as what’s happening right now, I think the Constitution has become what they hoped it would be: a technicality. Because the problem right now isn’t that they’re doing things that are obviously unconstitutional.

The problem is they’re doing things that are un-Declarational.

The Constitution is the instruction manual; it’s complicated and boring and it needs to be. And when the country is mainly trying to be itself, focus on the Constitution makes sense. When the machine is running but something isn’t working quite right, you turn to the instructions. That’s how you make it better. But the country is plainly no longer trying to be itself, so the instruction manual isn’t the place to go for help. 

The country has forgotten what it is supposed to be, so the place to go is the product information. And in the United States, the product information — the ad, the marketing pamphlet, the product announcement, the picture on the puzzle box — is the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution constitutes our government: creates it and tells it how it works. It’s rules. It’s the technical document.

“An illegitimate government bullying the people, refusing to respond to their complaints, and threatening them with extreme and unlimited punishment, without opportunity for redress, if they complain. We’ve been here before, 249 years ago.”

But the Declaration of Independence?  That’s not rules: that’s oratory. That’s the poetry we used to say not only who we are but why we are and how we are. Or anyway who we wish to be, and at our best who we occasionally are. More, the Declaration lists the reasons we felt we had to disassociate ourselves from our onetime mother country. 

We remember the first paragraph — “created equal, … unalienable Rights, …  Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness … deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” and all that — and we should. It’s a marvelous and inspirational, if aspirational, document. It represents what’s best about who we hope — and pretend — to be.

But beyond the airy language we all remember is a list of grievances: a list of things the king is doing that render continued endurance of his criminal treatment no longer possible. Remember: the colonists complained and complained and complained. The king ignored their complaints because he had the power and he could. Once the colonists had had enough they declared themselves independent, and listed their grievances.

Here are a few that may spark feelings of deja vu: 

“He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

“He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

“He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

“For cutting off our 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 offences:”

“In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. 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 fact that I do not need to link any of these offenses to particular current Regime depredations — you recognize them instantly — makes the point perfectly. But we don’t even have to go to the list.

We can start even from that famous line about governments “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

I live in North Carolina, where in the 2024 election for both houses of the state legislature, Democratic candidates received at least 2% more votes than Republicans — a majority for Democrats in both houses. And yet the result? Republicans hold at least 59% of the seats in each house. When the people vote for Democrats but are governed by Republicans you can call it gerrymandering or you can call it tyranny, but what you cannot call it is consent of the governed.

The current regime seems almost to be purposely copying the British response to colonial complaints. The same people who worship the Boston Tea Party hyperventilate at the damage of an electric car. And what was the calling of marines on the protesters in Los Angeles but an attempt at Boston Massacre 2.0? And at least in Boston the troops had the courage to show their faces.

We could go on and on. An illegitimate government bullying the people, refusing to respond to their complaints, and threatening them with extreme and unlimited punishment, without opportunity for redress, if they complain. We’ve been here before, 249 years ago.

We didn’t have the internet then, and we didn’t have phones or cars. But our forebears found a way to make it work. Again: we’ve been aspirational from the start, shamefully failing on slavery and women’s rights and many other issues. But we tried then, and it worked. We can’t stop trying now.

Morally we’re in the same spot as our forebears, and if we are losing rights by the hour we still retain what our forebears had:

Our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. The citizens retain that; the Regime has lives and fortunes, and is seizing ours, but has never had honor. I think we’ve reached the point where we have to decide what that means.

 https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript