Trump’s 4th of July Speech Appropriates Patriotism While Pushing Partisan Election Theft
We begin with the mix patriotism and partisanship in Trump’s 4th of July speech late last night delayed by thunderstorms in which he hailed a pending “Golden Age,” with its destiny written by God, celebrated the flag and veterans and warned that “Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America. We are not going to let it happen. We like to stop a threat like that immediately, before it begins. It’s like a cancer – you have to cut it out, and you have to cut it out fast.” Joining us is Adele Stan, an independent journalist and longtime chronicler of the right wing of U.S. politics. A winner of the Hillman Prize in Opinion & Analysis Journalism, her work has appeared in Mother Jones, The Nation, and The American Prospect as well as on the op-ed pages of The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
The Declaration of Independence’s Least Quoted Passage of Revolutionary Reform
Then we examine the Declaration of Independence the 13 colonies signed on July 4, 1776 and focus on the least quoted passage following the most quoted opening passage which is disturbingly relevant today. After “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” Jefferson wrote…”That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” Joining us is Aziz Rana, University Professor of Law and Government at Boston College where his research and teaching center on American constitutional law and political development as well as how shifting notions of race, citizenship, and empire have shaped legal and political identity since the founding. He is the author of The Two Faces of American Freedom and The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document that Fails Them, and we discuss his essay at Dissent Magazine, “The American Revolution in Global Retreat.”