Independence Day 2020 has come and gone.
There were no parades this year, backyard barbeques were socially-distanced, and massive fireworks spectaculars were mostly replaced by do-it-yourself neighborhood versions.
And there was one lame-ass speech, delivered at Mount Rushmore by President Trump.
In a made-for-television spectacle that his campaign folks designed, the President spent thirty minutes monotonously reciting every patriotic theme he could muster.
With earth-shaking events like the collapsed economy and the Covid-19 pandemic going full tilt, and the Nation grieving over Black families forever scarred by police brutality, Mr. Trump had an opportunity to talk about bringing people together to solve existential problems.
Instead, he chose to use his pulpit to denigrate citizens who disagree with his warped vision of America The Beautiful.
In summary, our President used the occasion to divide Americans, not unite them.
The usual suspects were identified: “angry mobs”, “far-left fascists”, “left-wing cultural revolution(aries)”, “liberal Democrats”, educators, and journalists.
The hand-picked crowd of Trump cultists roared its approval.
Absent from the speech was any mention of the reasons for the social unrest throughout the country which the Trump Administration has done everything possible to ignore: systemic racism in the law enforcement and criminal justice systems and police brutality against minorities.
Not one peep from our President acknowledging that America has some problems that need fixing.
Instead, he used the anniversary of the ultimate protest movement (a declaration of independence from British tyranny) to publicly bad mouth protesters who demand that his Administration and all succeeding ones do a better job serving people of color.
The President seems to be fixated on angry protesters who are pulling down statues of historical figures. He chooses to ignore why the “angry mobs” are targeting those statues and, instead, prefers to brand the dissidents as anti-Americans. After all, he says, they are destroying the Nation’s “heritage”.
Our Nation’s heritage is complex, and probably too deep a subject for the self-proclaimed “stable genius” to fathom.
In his speech, the President went to great length to detail some of the heroic achievements of famous Americans. His speech writer even threw in a few minority heroes, just to show how inclusive patriot Donald Trump purports to be.
The problem is that the rabble in the streets that the President is targeting with nasty rhetoric is not protesting American exceptionalism but, rather, long-standing cracks in the social fabric that he, other politicians, and White America, as a whole, have generally ignored for generations.
Many of the statues that are now falling are of individuals who helped defend the institution of slavery, either as politicians or as Confederate soldiers. Almost 600,000 Union soldiers/patriots died in the Civil War, helping to defeat the rebellious Southern states. Why should statues of Confederate soldiers, who were all traitorous to the United States, abound in parks and plazas throughout our country?
Sure, Civil War treachery is part of our Nation’s heritage, but not something to honor.
Similarly, our heritage includes other unsavory episodes that patriots like Donald Trump would rather not mention, choosing instead to cherry-pick the successes. “Why pick at a scab?” seems to be his M.O.
Actually, our Nation has evolved into what it is today because of individuals and organizations publicly protesting impediments, flaws, and moral wrongs in our country. Protesters, dissidents, and even mobs have forced much-needed change in our Nation. “Free Speech”, not the right to own a gun, is our most precious right as Americans living in a democracy.
President Trump is a great believer in free speech, as long as it’s his speech that is unimpaired. As for others, if they disagree with him, they are agitators that should be dealt with. He particularly despises journalists, because they report on things he doesn’t want known, educators, who teach facts, and experts, because the truth that they bring to the table soften refutes the bullshit he’s spreading.
Protest that resulted in change for the better is what made our country what it is today.
Protesters ignited the American Revolution. Crispus Attucks, a black man, was the first patriot killed at the Boston Massacre, which pre-dated the Boston Tea Party by three years.
Fifty-six brave protesters signed the Declaration of Independence, which put them at odds with the British Monarchy and marked them as traitors to the Crown, subject to death. Aren’t we glad they had the courage to protest?
Frances Willard, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott led throngs of protesters throughout America in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s demanding equal voting rights for women. They succeeded in gaining support for the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, approved in 1920.
Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass used rhetoric, and John Brown used fiery speeches and violence, to protest slavery in the mid-1800’s. They laid the groundwork for political change, which led to the Civil War, which led to the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.
Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, and Jacob Riis were investigative journalists at the turn of the 20th century who protested, via their writings, social, economic, and political decay in American society. Their writings paved the way for a period of Progressivism in the United States, led by individuals such as Theodore Roosevelt, Jane Addams, William Jennings Bryant, and Al Smith.
Samuel Gompers and other individuals who protested unsafe working conditions and unfair business tactics helped form the American Federation of Labor in 1886 and led the union for thirty-eight years.
Women in America have endured second class political, economic, and religious treatment for much of the Nation’s history. In the 1960’s, these disparities were protested by individuals such as Betty Friedan, who helped form the modern Women’s Liberation Movement which continues to this day protesting sexual inequality in the workplace and with regard to abortion rights.
The simple act of protest by sitting down in a public bus by Rosa Parks brought attention to the injustices of Jim Crow laws and segregation in the South.
Martin Luther King, namesake of Martin Luther, one of the most famous protesters of all time, was an effective protester for civil rights and the end of the war in Vietnam.
One of the most famous boxers in history, Muhammad Ali, gave up his heavyweight title in protest of the Vietnam War and the military draft.
Students at Kent State University protested that War, and some died, and the incident helped turn public opinion against President Nixon, who subsequently ended the conflict.
Atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair waged a three decade protest regarding the appropriate separation of church and state per the U.S. Constitution.
The dismal wages and working conditions of Mexican-American farm workers was effectively protested by Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta.
Two hundred years of abuse and a policy of genocide by the Federal government was protested by Russell Means and Dennis Banks, resulting in improved conditions for Native American citizens.
The rock singer Prince protested abusive music industry practices toward recording artists, resulting in a new way (streaming) of merchandising music and controlling artistic content.
All of these protests were aimed at the status quo…because it was lacking in some way. There was a better way of doing things, the protesters said, and thank goodness, their patriotic actions to make America better succeeded.
President Donald Trump represents the status quo. He is not interested in solving societal problems but, rather, in gaining/retaining political power by pitting the status quo against would-be societal change agents (i.e. protesters).
The “heritage” of America that the President speaks so lovingly of includes not only the wars won, the industry created, and the technology invented, but also the inherent problems that were solved when those issues were raised through protest.
We can’t, and our President can’t, pretend that our country is, and always has been, perfect. Yes, we’ve been “exceptional” in many ways, but we’ve made missteps too, like the annihilation of our native peoples, Jim Crow laws, Vietnam, economic meltdowns, governmental corruption and, lately, a shamelessly poor effort to combat a pandemic.
Citizens have a right to aspire for a better America. Protesting has proven the only effective way to achieve that end. Elected officials respond to people in streets carrying signs.
We owe a debt of gratitude to those patriotic Americans who have been willing, and continue to be willing, to face ridicule, abuse, and police-administered violence to alert society to its flaws.
These people aren’t anti-American, like our President would have us believe.
Rather, they are patriots of the first order.