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President Donald Trump pulls the nation every day further into his miasma of lawlessness. He renders our government piece by piece increasingly unrecognizable to us, whom, we had thought, it was designed to serve. Part of his plan is to disrupt on so many fronts simultaneously that we will be too bewildered and disoriented to be able to frame our opposition to him. It turns out, however, that in important respects, we have been here before, and that we can find the frame we need to understand our situation in our founding document, the Declaration of Independence. In what follows, I juxtapose important sections of the Declaration with Donald Trump's actions as president.
+ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
The Trump administration is systematically attempting to undermine or reverse American achievements in addressing the inequalities in our society, from voting rights to healthcare. Trump's concept of equality seems to be that we should all be equally in fear of him.
+ That they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
life: The Trump administration seeks to deny government any role in making medical care available to citizens, while planning to promulgate a nationwide ban on abortion. In other words, the right to life will be protected by government from conception until birth. The Trump administration's intentions and actions in slashing Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare all demonstrate the notion that it only recognizes fetuses as having the right to life.
liberty: Liberty can only exist where individuals are not impinging upon the liberty of others, a mandate that requires self-restraint. In a tyranny, the tyrant is free; all others are not. In an aristocracy, the aristocratic class is free; all other classes are not. In both cases, liberty for some is achieved at the cost of the liberty of others. President Trump does not view liberty