We Americans do not have, and do not believe in, kings: MAGA wants Trump to be King (literally, posted on White House website). And they want Billionaires to have the final say over everything in our America.
What else sets ordinary patriotic Americans apart from MAGA?
- We believe (with the Declaration of Independence) that all are created equal– and must be accorded equal opportunity and equal treatment under the law. And that our country should be ruled by the will of ordinary people, citizens. MAGA sees white males as a superior class, and Billionaires at an even higher rank.
- We believe in the Constitution and the Rule of Law. MAGA will undermine our laws, and disobey them, whenever it suits their purpose. They are OK with cop-killers if they support Musk-Trump.
- We believe (straight from the Constitution) that the purpose of government is to… “form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and pour posterity…”. MAGA wants to divide us, has no use for Justice, no use for the Welfare of ordinary people, and no use for Liberty for anyone who does not toe the Musk-Trump line.
- We believe in freedom of speech. MAGA supports freedom to support Musk & Trump views only.
- We believe in freedom of religion. MAGA wants to force right-wing evangelical christianity on everyone– including their views of conception and abortion.
- We believe deeply in the right to Vote, and that this must be protected. 97% of Americans believe we must have elections that are run fairly, open to all citizens, and honest. MAGA wants to strip away this right from all but their own select few. They want elections to be elaborate shows that only their favored ones can win.
- We believe (92% of us) that government should help with the burdens of health care… especially for our oldest and most vulnerable citizens. MAGA wants to cut or eliminate Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.
- We believe (over 90% of us) that birth control is OK and is a private decision. MAGA is working to end this privacy and to control these private decisions for their own political gain.
- We believe in reasonable firearm safety. 94% support universal background checks, and 77% support requiring licenses for gun ownership. MAGA supports wide-open gun proliferation with no limits or controls.
- We believe our strength is in our diversity— that our country is based on ideals, not on racial and gender groups. “E Pluribus Unum”— Out of Many, One. We accept the need to fix immigration, through agreements and laws made by Congress— not mass Musk-led deportations to torture sites. We believe discrimination is wrong. MAGA wants to bring back its own new form of segregation and Jim Crow.
- We are proud of what was accomplished in World War II and Korea— our forbears, our family, some still living, fought against fascism and tyranny in those wars. MAGA glories in using NAZI salutes and supports fascist parties in Europe, and fascist policies here in the US.
- We support our alliances (such as NATO) and our allies who are trying to defend themselves against dictators from Russia and China. MAGA is subservient to Putin and Russia, and puts more tariffs on Canada and Mexico than on China!
At Gettysburg, in 1863, Lincoln posed the challenge: Our founders had brought forth on this continent a new nation, dedicated to a proposition— that all are created equal. He said that the battles of the Civil War were testing whether a nation so conceived and so dedicated could long endure. Now we have to ask ourselves the same question. Can our democratic republic long endure?
Lincoln called for us to take increased devotion to the cause for which so many had died. We can now also look back to those who fought tyranny in the 20th Century as well, and so many others who have struggled for Liberty since Lincoln’s time. Lincoln would ask us, too, in our time, to take “increased devotion.”
We Americans, we Minnesotans, must not allow MAGA to get away with their pretense that they are patriots. They clearly hate everything America is really about. They clearly are just trying to advance the well-being of the richest white people, the Billionaires like Musk and Trump. And let the crumbs fall to everyone else.
So… we Americans, we Minnesotans, must renew our dedication to the “unfinished work” for which so many have fought— in Lincoln’s words, a “New Birth of Freedom.”
Each of us must renew our to resolve to do what is required to assure “that Government Of the People, By the People, and For the People, shall not perish from the earth.” Because now we see that it really could perish if we do nothing. It is a tall order. But these are the times we have been given.
Peter Miller– SD31 Communications
Source: Charlotte Hill Andersen, Readers Digest (rd.com) January 2023