On This Fourth of July, Say No to Kings

Countering Mr. Trump's long train of abuses

Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history . . . The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility.

–Abraham Lincoln

On this Independence Day, there is little time for celebration.

We instead mourn.

We mourn the chaos sown by a malicious, tyrannical president (and an acquiescent Congress and Supreme Court). We mourn the widespread suffering his policies have caused, both here and abroad. From foreign students detained for months for the crime of speaking their conscience to cancer patients who lost access to life-saving drugs because of DOGE-led cuts at the NIH, the human toll of Donald Trump’s rampage through government is not an abstraction.

We are perhaps most disturbed by Mr. Trump’s lawlessness. The rule of law is a bedrock principle of our democracy. Policies made by flouting existing law—especially the Constitution—undermine democracy. And yet this is just what many of Mr. Trump’s policies have done. He has fired attorneys at the Department of Justice (and countless other civil servants across government) in clear violation of civil-service protection laws; usurped Congress’s power of the purse by unilaterally pausing foreign aid and federal loans and grants; and sought to end birthright citizenship—a constitutionally guaranteed right—via executive order, in a move that one federal district court judge called “blatantly unconstitutional.” The scope of Mr. Trump’s illegal behavior is breathtaking.

And so we must act.

We invite Utahns everywhere on this Independence Day to renew their commitment to peacefully resisting the Trump administration. Let us publicly challenge them at every turn. For instance, we can seek to break the chokehold that Mr. Trump now has on the Republican Party, pressuring Utah’s congressional delegation to show up for their constituents’ needs—as opposed to those of MAGA extremists—by voting “no” on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

There are countless other ways of productively engaging in the work of democratic resistance; many Utahns are already involved in the fight. Let us join them—at marches, on the phones, in town halls with our senators and representatives. Could there be a better way of celebrating July 4 than immersing ourselves in this difficult work of self-governance?

We acknowledge in closing the scope of the challenge that lies before us—the depths of the Trump administration’s inhumanity and cruelty. The “fiery trial” through which our nation now passes is surely among the most serious challenges our democracy has faced since the Civil War. But we must not lose hope. As Lincoln reminds us, “we hold the power . . . and bear the responsibility”; our government derives its powers from the consent of the governed—“the governed” being all of us. And we do not consent to America’s transformation into an authoritarian state.

Like King George III, Donald Trump has “utterly neglected to attend to [our laws]” and “obstructed the administration of justice.” But he is not a king, he is our president. Let us—through our tireless, peaceful advocacy—put a stop to his “long train of abuses” and remind him that he serves us, the people of the United States. It is not the reverse. This was our founding ideal. We must return to it.