We joined together in a ‘mutual pledge’

Our nation’s 245th anniversary is Sunday. But for many of us, this is not a happy birthday. The one issue of unanimous consent among us is that we are divided. There are two issues of agreement among the population. One is that we are divided. The second is that the other side is defiantly wrong.

July 4th is to celebrate the Declaration of Independence, our founding document, our first statement of principles. It is our touchstone. It can help us today.

The first paragraph unites us in purpose: “one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them to” an imperious king. The paragraph ends:

“a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Our Founders lay out their premise- and their grievances:

“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –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,”

That was in 1776. In 2016 and 2020 Donald Trump, as presidential candidate, insisted that states’ election systems were crooked, that fraud was systematic and rampant. He has not conceded the 2020 election. He has upset many and rallied millions to his cause. Thousands stormed the Capitol Jan. 6, an insurrection against our federal government. There are grievances aplenty, but the motivating purpose is a con. It does not deserve our respect.

Trump lost over 60 court cases last fall yet he ignores our system of elections and justice and agitates to this day spreading his false claims, also known as lies.

Since Trump and his followers have freedom of speech, they are free to champion their beliefs. But fervent embrace of hopes and dreams does not make them true. What is the rest of the nation to do against this ongoing zeal?

Sticking to the facts is critical. U.S elections are fair. Our justice system works. Yet millions will not accept society’s rules.

What is the majority of citizens to do with these rigid dissenters?

Our Founders declared, both to King George III and a candid world, “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

What new guards will we the people create against the constant lies and following of beliefs not based in truth?

Trump and his dissenters are firm in their ardor. They will not leave. But they cannot turn water into wine nor lead into gold. They will continue to nip at the heels of our democracy and continue to undermine it.

The majority of the nation does not want to “dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,” this time our family, neighbors and friends. So how is our “future security” secured?

Neither side can claim independence from the other, though one side has supported insurrection. In this present moment, when all of us do not “hold these truths to be self-evident,” there is a tremendous amount of nation building needed among a country of disparate citizens, many of whom refuse to play by either the norm or rules of a democratic country. Many follow behind a different flag, literally.

The Founders, representing their 13 colonies, signed their names “by Authority of the good People of these Colonies,” knowing they were working to birth a new nation.

This July 4th we might have a happy birthday but we are not united and are unable to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

Nations are built and maintained by mutual sacrifice but that is in short supply in these United States now and, sadly, well into our future.