Citizen soldiers fight in the Revolutionary War
Today is Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts. Oh, not the hokey one George W. Bush dreamed up after Nine-Eleven but the holiday that Massachusetts has celebrated since1894 and which is shared by six other states.
This year marks a very special celebration: the 250th anniversary of the day the Revolutionary War began at Concord Bridge and Lexington’s Battle Green. It memorializes the birth of democracy in what became the United States of America.
The Future of Democracy
So, it is both ironic and appalling that this year we find ourselves worried once more about the future of democracy in our country. Two hundred and fifty years ago we fought England’s Mad King George III for our freedom. Now many Americans fight chaotic wannabe King Donald. We want to maintain our Constitution and Bill of Rights in the face of daily assaults from a government that is being weaponized against its citizens.
Fear in the Halls of Congress
Today in the news, Alaska’s Independent Senator Lisa Murkowski admitted that she and the GOP politicians are afraid. She opposes the Trump regime and is fearing threats she hasn’t specified from people she is afraid to identify at a cost she can’t possibly quantify.
A quarter century ago, ordinary folks with ordinary occupations took up arms and put their own lives in danger rather than submit to taxes, tariffs, and unjust laws. They protested having British Regulars quartered in private homes. They felt the very real threat of oppression from a far-away government in which they had no representation. The outcome was not certain and they felt plenty of fear.
A Great Dismay
Today, I feel a great dismay at the many wealthy, powerful, influential, and privileged people who are so frightened of the Trump regime that they obey before orders are given. They bend the knee out of fear before he orders them to kneel. They cut deals with a man they know will not honor them rather than incur his anger.
People who should know better—law firms, universities, politicians, corporations, Cabinet members, and many others—choose to act against their own best interests, and those of the country, rather than risk a negative social media post. Or the loss of government funds. Or access to federal buildings.
Fear and Surrendering in Advance
These are not weak and helpless people; they are titans of industry and moguls of money who have leverage—serious leverage. Yet they give in to his threats, often before the threat is even made.
We wouldn’t find any of this crowd throwing tea into Boston Harbor or holding the line at Bunker Hill. None of these milquetoast men and cautious cowards would have carried a rifle to Concord Bridge or joined the Express Riders. They don’t even rise to the status of “summer soldiers and sunshine patriots.”
In a movie about terrorists, they would be the ones on their knees begging, “Please don’t hurt me.”
What Are They Afraid Of?
So, what are they all afraid of?
I can understand a politician fearing that he/she would be primaried by a Trump flunky and lose their job. But, really, what are the odds? In 2024, he pulled this stunt—and lost in many places. For the candidates he supported, his endorsements proved far from iron-clad:
- Senate candidates: 4 losses
- House of Representatives candidates: 11 losses
- Gubernatorial candidates: 10 losses
- State executive candidates: 2 losses
Add them up: of the candidates he endorsed, 27 men and women—some of them famous and prominent—went down in flames. Senator Murkowski herself won as an independent after she was primaried—and won.
The People Rise Against the Fear
The Republicans’ so-called leaders may be afraid to act but the American people are rising up in anger, frustration, and fear. While the big guns cave in to a coward, the ordinary folks are marching and carrying signs.
Republican politicians shouldn’t be afraid of Trump; they should be afraid of their constituents who are filling town halls, city plazas, and big stadiums to protest his chaotic destruction of a stable government and the American economy.
By giving in to today’s tyrant out of fear, they put themselves at greater risk. As Benjamin Franklin said, “We must all hang together or we will hang separately.” He meant that without mutual support and cooperation, the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, and thus the colonies, risked defeat and execution by the British. The “hanging” was not just a metaphor.
Safety in Unity
In 1775 we sought safety in unity and power in standing together instead of taking on the British one at a time. That’s how thirteen colonies became one nation.
I can hope this Patriots’ Day will energize the resistance, reduce the fear of retribution, and strengthen the backbones of the weak. But I won’t hold my breath.
