With Trump versus Harris for the country’s next president, many have monikered the contest as, “the prosecutor versus the convicted felon” or Trump’s VP selection versus childless women. These quips aren’t as profound as a comparison few have probably thought about, if at all, starting with the following.
He has refused his Assent to Laws…necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance.
He has refused to pass laws for the accommodation of large districts of people.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States, for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws.
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States.
For cutting off Trade with all parts of the world.
For imposing Taxes without our Consent.
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by jury.
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging war against us.
He has incited domestic insurrections amongst us. Compare this list with the following:
Taking over the Commerce and Justice Departments, the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission in a partisan way.
Eliminating the Department of Education, the Federal Drug Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Infusing Christian Nationalism as the dominant way of life in the United States. Discarding the notion of Climate Change.
Abolishing the Federal Reserve.
Leaving the education of children to individual states.
Diminishing the breadth of Medicare and Social Security from what they are today. Deporting Immigrants en masse.
Refusing to allow abortion to remain part of a woman’s right to reproductive healthcare in any state and to outlaw all tools, including pharmaceuticals, for an abortion.
Minimizing the role of women in American society.
Giving the president absolute power, using the military at his pleasure to quell protests, round up immigrants, and arrest dissenters.
Limiting access to food assistance and Head Start early education program. Denying students in 25 states and Washington DC access to student loans.
Rolling back civil rights protections across multiple fronts, including cutting diversity, equity and inclusion-related programs and LGBTQ+ rights in health care, education and workplaces.
Although obvious due to the language used in the first list of grievances, it is from the long lens of history, before we were all born. It was presented 248 years ago on July 4 in Congress as the reasons contained in the Declaration of Independence for why it was crafted. Place it alongside the next list, a summary of Project 2025, the 920-page blueprint authored by the conservative thinktank, the Heritage Foundation, to guide Trump in his next administration starting next year.
Quoting the Declaration, its creation was motivated because, “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States…[Referring to the King] A Prince whose character…may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people”. The other was authored, among others, by Trump’s former staffers, intended as his governing roadmap. Not much of a difference in their strictures and (lack of) freedoms despite being two and one-half centuries apart. And this does not factor-among other of his transgressions- Trump’s role in the 1/6 insurrection; a fraudster; a sexual assaulter (a federal judge used the word “rape”); and a convicted felon 34x.
This exercise is more than comparative existentialism; it is a necessary juxtaposition to highlight the importance of the next election: whether we wish to retreat and go backwards nearly 25 decades with one presidential candidate, or wanting to be led by the other whose foundation is based on a different philosophy and set of values and guiding principles for our country’s future with freedoms and opportunities established, maintained, or recreated.
We the People will decide Nov. 5, but no reason exists allowing back into our midst a King of Great Britain type authoritarian dictator after our founders and framers rid themselves of such an individual. And, yet, if we do not learn from that history, we are bound to lose the guardrails the Declaration established for us and cede our democracy to the content of a Project 2025. Let’s not forget this comparison before entering the polling booth.
Miles Zaremski is a resident of The Villages.
