TGATP NOTE: I originally wrote a version of this post for July 4th, 2017. However, in the last seven years we have seen a wave of corruption from the Trump MAGA Cult Party, formerly known as the GOP, who are currently putting forth a criminally insane, seditiousness traitor as their candidate for the Presidency. In addition, we have a corrupt, partisan Supreme Court that is undoing over 50 years of progress for women, people of color and the LGBTQ community. This same corrupt supposedly “supreme” court just made the President a King with unlimited immunity. So this updated post is more vital and relevant now than it was then!
The 4th of July has always been a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, the “Founding Fathers” were vessels of truth, who espoused noble ideas of freedom and justice for all. But on the other, they were sexist, racist slaveowners, who after writing these treatises hypocritically went home, raped and beat their slaves and oppressed their wives. It was more than a hundred years after the so-called Declaration of Independence before slavery was abolished and more than a hundred more before African-Americans had civil rights. And we still have rampant racism and discrimination in every aspect of America life. From jobs to health care to housing to education, Black Americans at every economic level have an extra hurdle to overcome. Lynching has simply taken the form of murdered by police. The years I have spent as an Activist on the cases of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Rosa Jimenez, and other innocent people imprisoned for Life and/or on death row, have also made it glaringly clear to me that we still do not have true freedom. I know well the hypocrisy of us calling this “Independence Day.”
When 2008 brought the election of President Obama, I felt there was a ray of hope for the nation. Even though I was personally still dealing with the overt racism from PR people in the influencer industry, I had hoped that the nation, as a whole, was headed in the right direction and that my industry was just an outlier. For me, the 4th of July holidays spent with President Obama in office brought a renewed pride in our nation. I thought that perhaps, we truly could finally move past our racist past. Perhaps, we could live up to the greatness at the foundation of our Constitution. Perhaps, we would finally give all Americans the equality under the law that had only been hinted at for hundreds of years.
But what a difference sixteen years has made! After the election of the first Black President and the passage of gay marriage, the racist and homophobic whitewash from the GOP and racist, homophobic, white Americans was swift! The 2016 election of Trump, a narcissistic, criminally-insane psychopath with no political experience or interest in anything other than furthering his own criminal enterprise and enriching himself, turned our once respected and beloved nation into a banana republic for four years! During his tenure, this fool appointed incompetent and crooked cronies to every agency, bent the entire GOP to his bidding through threats and compromising material, likely provided by Putin, compromised national security, and committed a wave of crimes that included trying to bribe Ukraine to provide dirt on his opponent’s son, election-tampering and ultimately, sedition. When the American people wisely voted his crazy criminal ass out, Trump and his minions even staged a coup attempt and brought us to the brink of civil war!
But unfortunately, Trump stayed long enough to permanently burde the country with three far-right, partisan and corrupt Supreme Court justices, who are doing the evil bidding of the farthest right fascists in the Trump party. On the personal front, I have dealt with even more racism, except for a brief reprieve, when PR people made performative statements and outreach during the summer of George Floyd. (Not surprisingly, I haven’t heard from any of them since.) With the Supreme Court now giving them the permission to openly discriminate, I expect it to get far worse for BIPOC influencers and BIPOC workers in general.
After being trounced by President Biden, in the biggest election landslide in history, trump and his minions staged a coup attempt that was only thwarted because the VP refused to go along with it. For the past three and a half years with the media’s help, they have continued to push their 2002 election irregularity lies by launching groundless investigations. This has divided the nation into two factions: Trump cultists, who live in an alternative reality, where the loser of an election still gets to be the President and only white people have any rights and the rest of us.
And even, more alarmingly, the mainstream media has chosen to rally behind Trump following his every move and hanging on his every word. This has dangerously normalized his criminally insane behavior. I recently had MSNBC, a supposedly more liberal news network, on and they said “trump” over two dozen times in a five-minute span. CNN has decided to go all the way right with constant inane criticism of President Biden and endorsement of Trump as a viable Presidential candidate. This despite the fact that Trump has already been indicted for 87 crimes, convicted of 34 including rape, and faces 3 more trials. Pundit after pundit, continually and falsely, claim that Trump’s popularity is growing with each indictment despite very strong evidence to the contrary.
And then there was the debate.
Yes, President Biden is old. Yes, he had a really bad debate performance. But trump is only 3 years younger and REGULARLY sundowns slurring words, mistaking people for each other, and worse, pathologically LYING. Far worse than President Biden’s performance, Trump was a complete mess! He LIED every time he spoke. He took credit for things that presidents Obama and Biden did. He idiotically claimed that nine-month old babies were being “aborted” AFTER birth. He racistly blathered on about “black jobs”. He threatened to prosecute his political opponents and even thinks he has the right to assassinate them! Yet, all the media has concentrated on in the bloody aftermath is Biden’s age and his blunders.
One debate does NOT erase the three and a half years of great things that President Biden has achieved. The REAL story is the dozens of accomplishments that Biden has achieved for the American people in his 3 and a ½ years in office! We have the 1st female, Black, and Asian VP, record unemployment, low drug costs, the first major investment in our infrastructure in decades in all 50 states creating thousands of jobs, student loan forgiveness, $15 minimum wage and higher wages, expanded Pell grants, expansion of benefits for veterans including toxic exposed vets, protection of marriage for both interracial and LGBTQ couples, the 1st Black SCOTUS justice and 100s of diverse federal judges, forgiveness of thousands of marijuana convictions, the most aggressive environmental and climate change agenda in US history, expansion of healthcare benefits, the most significant gun violence prevention legislation in 30 years, creation of 750,000 manufacturing jobs, 16 million
low-income families receiving free or low-cost internet, the 1st Indigenous cabinet member, an expansion of DOJ investigations into missing or murdered indigenous women, the establishment of a White House initiatives on advancing educational equity, excellence, and economic Opportunity for Black, Hispanic, Asian & Indigenous Americans, a reformation of prisons to stop the prison industrial complex, protection of women’s rights to choose, and so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so much more!
The media is actively trying to put trump back in. MSM have normalized trump’s criminal insanity for almost 10 years now. They have normalized the ridiculousness of a convicted felon and rapist, who staged a coup attempt being a supposed Presidential candidate. All while blathering on and harassing President Biden because he is old and stutters!
That any American is even considering voting for trump, a criminally insane, career conman, seditious traitor, and serial rapist is ridiculous. Couple the continuing seditious conspiracy from the Trump Cult Party, formerly known as the GOP, with the recent rulings from their puppet Supreme Court that endanger the lives of millions of American women, allow for discrimination against people of color and the LGBTQ community, change the Presidency to a dictatorship, and eliminate all federal regulations that protect us, and the country is already finished. We are barreling rapidly towards a fascist and very unpleasant American future.
But I, for one, am not going back without a major fight! I am moving forward. I am fulfilling the promise and the dreams that my ancestors had for me. I will honor my African and Native ancestry, as well as, civil rights leaders – and yes, the Founding Fathers – by resisting every attempt to destroy our democracy by these corrupt and evil MAGA forces and the mainstream media. I will remain independent of all the ignorance, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and cruelty that the MAGAs are flinging at both American citizens and people worldwide. I will never consider this nonsensical MAGA/GOP circus, normal or acceptable. I know that this country can, and will be, greater and will continue to fight for an end to discrimination on all fronts and freedom and liberty for all.
This 4th of July, TGATP urges you to pledge to be a true Patriot and remember that this holiday celebrates resistance. It calls on us all to stand up for the principles of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. It demands that we be the best that we can be and unite to hold our government accountable to only passing laws that are in the best interests of the majority, not the 1%. It demands that we truly put “America First” and “Make America Great Again” by recognizing that we are ALL Americans, all of us – Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, Indigenous, immigrants, LGBTQ, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and more. America was on the path to greatness just four years ago and President Biden has done dozens of things to right our path from the horrific trump years. The only way to make America great “again” is to rid ourselves of the people, who are trying to convince us otherwise and take us backwards.
Happy 4th and yes, STAY WOKE!
