We Have Been Here Before: Reading the Declaration of Independence in 2025
by Richard B. Grose
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 as your inalienable right. For Trump, liberty is a condition that you receive from him after paying (him) the necessary price.
THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS: Jefferson said, “Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.” The purpose of government must ineffably but crucially include living together with the greatest possible harmony and affection. President Trump, like all dictators, is happy to radiate harmony and affection so long as he is personally loved. As soon as he feels criticized, his hatred is boundless.
Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it … organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
A short list of the agencies that Trump either plans to attack or has attacked—Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—indicates what seems to be a clear intent to destroy citizens’ sense of safety. Trump, following all dictators, wants to make citizens’ safety a function of their approval of Trump.
The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations.
The Declaration then lists twenty-seven actions of the King. Here are eighteen of them, with commentary on similarities to the words and actions of President Trump.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
Trump has deployed extra-constitutional powers as president to weaken or destroy the most wholesome and necessary laws for the public good, e.g., Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, FEMA, NIH, NOAA, etc.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
Trump has used his power over the Republican majorities in both Houses to render Congress effectively impotent.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
Trump has demonized and terrorized migrants who have come here to work, and he has illegally sought to abrogate the constitutional right of birthright citizenship.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
Trump has devastated the American administration of justice by turning the Department of Justice and the FBI into mindless extensions of his will in defiance of the requirements of law.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
Trump has demonized any judge that has ruled against him, threatening them with impeachment, and seeking to make judges serve him and not the law.
He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
Trump has established an ad hoc body, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has sent unvetted persons to harass and fire government workers without cause, hollowing out the functioning of vitally important government agencies.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.
Trump has announced the intention to invoke the Insurrection Act passed for use during time of war, thus preparing the ground for using the military against the people for his own political purposes.
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.
Trump has removed military officers who might not support him and has installed persons in military positions whose main qualification is loyalty to him.
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.
Trump has mused publicly about using US military forces in large numbers to enforce his will in cities that resist it.
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states.
Trump has eliminated the Pentagon office that investigated evidence of war crimes in the military.
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world.
Trump has instituted huge tariffs (and then paused them for all except China) thus showing himself ready to cause a serious disruption to world trade.
For imposing taxes on us without our consent.
Trump’s tariffs were enacted by getting his majorities in Congress to approve his assertion of a fictitious “emergency” permitting him rather than Congress to enact tariffs, contrary to what is stipulated in the Constitution.
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury.
Trump has deported undocumented migrants and green-card holders without due process.
For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences.
Trump has deported persons without due process to be held in foreign prisons.
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments.
Trump has contrived effectively to abolish Congress as a coequal branch of government and has striven to eliminate the independence of the judiciary.
He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
Trump has threatened to declare martial law, which would effectively wage war against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
Trump has weakened or dismantled governmental efforts to slow the climate crisis and to help Americans who suffer from its effects.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
Trump is supported by private armies such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, which have already violently fought for Trump in attacking the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and he has pardoned the many hundreds of them who were convicted of crimes in this connection.
A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Have we been here before? Yes and no.
The similarities between King George III and President Donald Trump are manifest. Both would destroy the legislative process, undermine the judicial system, create destructive new offices, be ready to use the military against the people, impose taxes without the consent of the people, attack judicial due process, and seek the military assistance of private armies.
Our forefathers presented a clear and convincing argument for a world historical act of rebellion and self-government. They first tried to alter their government by appealing to the King and to the British people. When these attempts failed, they declared independence and abolished their government.
We face a different situation. We elected our tyrant.
A sizable percentage of the American citizenry, raised and educated in the American republic, sees their safety and happiness in the reliable observance of democratic norms. At the same time, another sizable percentage of the citizenry sees their safety and happiness guaranteed only by the acceptance of an autocratic state that they think will offer them protection and thus give them a sense of safety, without which they can see no prospect of happiness. These are two irreconcilable views of safety and happiness. One camp believes in the value of truth and logic as exemplified by the Declaration. The other camp believes only in the emotional tie that binds it to the leader. No one knows how the relative strengths of these two camps will play out, and in what form.
In a functioning republic, as ours was until very recently, the relative strengths of the opposing sides would be determined by a fair and free election. In an emerging dictatorship which is determined above all to prevent a fair and free election from occurring, it is impossible to foresee how the determination will be made.
If we cannot alter our government in the next election due to the electoral irregularities always favored by dictators, then we as a nation will be faced with the question of how to proceed.
While the Declaration cannot tell us how to respond to tyranny in our time, it can perhaps encourage us as the actions of the Trump administration become ever more lawless and the danger in the nation mounts.
Across the centuries, the last words of the Declaration of Independence speak to us with the courage they embody
And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
As they could not know what signing the Declaration would mean for them, so we in this moment cannot know what defending democracy in our time will require of us.
- Richard B. Grose is on the Editorial Board of ROOM. He teaches clinical seminars at IPTAR and is a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. He is interested in using psychoanalysis to understand the operation of culture in our lives, especially when they are stressed in the way they are today.
- Email: rgrose93@gmail.com
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