A declaration

Let Facts be submitted to a candid world:

To return to the Saturday protests — and to put them in slightly different terms — roughly one in 50 Americans gathered under one slogan (“No Kings!”) to protest against the president’s authoritarian methods and monarchical aspirations. And while Trump’s allies may feign ignorance with regard to claims that he’s seeking arbitrary and unaccountable power — hiding behind an accusation of “Trump derangement syndrome” — it takes no time at all to write out a litany of offenses that threaten the republican foundations of American democracy.

To borrow language from one of the nation’s founding documents, Trump has “erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance”; 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 cut “off our Trade with all Parts of the World” and imposed “Taxes on us without our Consent.” He has transported us “beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences” and in deigning to spend tax dollars without congressional authorization — to pay soldiers in the midst of a shutdown, in a move reminiscent of Stuart absolutism — he has “invested” himself “with Power to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.”

All this so that he might alter “fundamentally the Forms of our Governments,” and remake the United States in his image as a personalist autocracy.

Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.