Days earlier than the U.S. marks its independence from the British monarchy, the Supreme Court docket turned the presidency into an autocracy.
In a 6-3 determination, the U.S. Supreme Court docket simply granted near-total immunity to Donald Trump, stating {that a} former president can’t be criminally prosecuted “for conduct inside his unique sphere of Constitutional authority.” The supermajority of conservative judges additionally dominated that presidents additionally take pleasure in “at the very least a presumptive immunity from prison prosecution” for acts “throughout the outer perimeter of his unofficial duty.” Presidents will not be immune from prosecution for “unofficial acts.”
“The harm has been finished,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her scathing dissent. “The connection between the President and the folks he serves has shifted irrevocably. In each use of official energy, the President is now a king above the regulation.”
In different phrases: Simply days earlier than the nation will mark its independence from the British monarchy, the Supreme Court docket turned the U.S. presidency into an autocracy. The Fourth of July is formally a farce.
Now not is the phrase ‘nobody is above the regulation’ an American actuality.
In fact, celebrating the “land of the free and the house of the courageous” has all the time been an train in willful buffoonery—even earlier than, however particularly after, the overturn of Roe v. Wade, which for 50 years established the constitutional proper to abortion care. Now, pregnant folks throughout the nation are compelled to hold undesirable and unsafe pregnancies to time period, risking their psychological, bodily and emotional well being in addition to their fertility, futures, and even their lives.
Publish-Roe, 14 states have enacted near-total abortion bans and an estimated 1 in 5 folks are actually compelled to journey out of state for care.
To even counsel that the U.S. is a bastion of freedom, when ladies are bleeding out at dwelling, being turned away from emergency rooms and slipping into comas as docs debate whether or not or not they will present life-saving abortions isn’t simply delusional—it’s an intentional fabrication.
Homosexual, trans and nonbinary youth are actually not free to take pleasure in their unalienable proper to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” when Republican legislators are busy introducing a record-number of anti-LGBTQ+ legal guidelines. In a rustic that celebrates self-determination, conservative lawmakers have efficiently criminalized gender-affirming care, banned academics from referring to their college students by their chosen (learn: appropriate) names and pronouns, and demonized LGBTQ-friendly books in faculties and group libraries.
When complete LGBTQ+ households are fleeing their dwelling states for worry their kids will be unable to obtain sufficient well being care, or will probably be focused of their school rooms, or will face harassment and even violence at their native grocery retailer or park, there isn’t any such factor as American liberty.
When practically half of LGBTQ+ youth have critically thought of suicide, are 43 p.c extra prone to be bullied at college and are even terrified to do one thing so simple as use a public toilet, the truths this authorities has claimed to carry “self evident” are, the truth is, bold-faced fallacies.
Youngsters dwelling within the U.S. will not be free to study, develop and play inside their elementary, center and high-school school rooms with out worry they are going to be killed by a shooter who—due to lackadaisical gun legal guidelines purchased and paid for by a criminally negligent gun foyer—gained entry to a weapon of warfare. In 2023 alone, practically 4,300 folks misplaced their proper to life because of gun violence.
The so-called “dwelling of the courageous” is full of folks so fearful of their neighbors, strangers and even their very own shadows that they repeatedly declare they are not looking for however want unfettered entry to firearms created particularly to kill as many individuals as potential, as shortly as potential.
‘Murica.
It’s a misinform faux this nation upholds the indeniable reality that “all males are created equal” when Black ladies are six occasions extra probably to be killed than white ladies, Indigenous ladies are 2.5 occasions extra probably to be raped than non-Native ladies, and Hawaiian and Pacific Islander ladies are extra prone to die of pregnancy- and birth-related causes than white ladies.
There isn’t a “equality” when ladies are nonetheless paid lower than males, Black ladies are extra prone to reside in poverty and practically half of all working ladies say they’ve skilled sexual harassment within the office.
For much too lengthy, these onerous truths and harrowing statistics have been missed or outright ignored so as to perpetuate the phantasm that the U.S. is so star-spangled superior our innate freedom is evenly distributed and our inalienable rights are equally loved. Even now—when it’s against the law to be homeless and affirmative motion now not ensures college students of shade obtain truthful consideration through the school admissions course of—numerous Individuals will escape U.S. flag tank-tops and pink, white, and blue-colored cocktails in celebration of our freedom-loving, equality-prioritizing, so-called superior democracy.
And just like the greater than 247 different Fourth of July celebrations which have come earlier than, it would all be a lie.
Solely this time, within the wake of the Supreme Court docket immunity determination, that lie will probably be extra apparent. Now not is the phrase “nobody is above the regulation” an American actuality.
Our solely hope for a future democracy that actually does embody the easiest, most aspirational features of a free United States is to uphold the opposite, arguably most vital a part of the Declaration of Independence:
“When an extended practice of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the identical Object evinces a design to cut back them beneath absolute Despotism, it’s their proper, it’s their responsibility, to throw off such Authorities, and supply new Guards for his or her future safety.”
It’s time for a brand new guard—new leaders who will maintain a corrupt, bribe-taking, insurrectionist flag-flying Supreme Court docket accountable by establishing hearings, issuing articles of impeachment and increasing the Court docket itself. It’s time for progressive lawmakers to do greater than ask for our votes, ship out marketing campaign emails and problem stern statements—they have to reshape a authorities that has been poisoned by white supremacy, misogyny and Christian nationalism, or get out of the way in which so the subsequent era can.
Maybe then, and solely then—when everybody has the correct to regulate their very own our bodies, elevate their households free from the specter of gun violence, and ship their kids right into a world that can respect their autonomy and honor their humanity—will the Fourth of July now not be a tragic, merciless joke.
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