I made the mistake of watching the President’s 18-minute “defense of his administration” speech on the same night that I finished Ken Burn’s latest documentary The American Revolution. It made me so proud to be an American after watching the sacrifices that our Continental Army endured and the government that our Founding Fathers set up in order to keep our independence. Some important facts from that series should be memorized by our President and the voters of this nation.
The founders set up citizenship as a participatory enterprise. The Preamble to our Constitution starts, “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union.” This means citizens must pay attention to issues, form opinions based on fact and be heard. Our founders would be mortified to learn that 95 million people stayed home on the last Election Day and that 77 million voted for a man who encouraged a dangerous, treasonous coup to overtake our institutions and laws.
The founders also took the separation of power into 3 branches (in order to check each other) very seriously. They would not be happy to learn that the President threatens each Republican in Congress who votes against him or that the Supreme Court is massively expanding presidential power. They would be unhappy to note that today we have a President who thinks he is above the law.
George Washington refused to be a king or a dictator. He presided over the Constitutional Convention hoping that a document would be forged that held everyone in government accountable to the people. Trump’s speech proved that he knew very little about our history. It was filled with superlatives that have no basis in fact.
Ken Burns ended his magnificent series with the quote, “The American Revolution is not over.” Can Trump and his supporters even appreciate what that phrase means?
Jan Goldberg
Riverside
