July 4th shock have the redcoats returned to rule?

It's July 4th, the day we celebrate the founding of our nation and the values

proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that was signed more or less on this day.

But does today's America reflect the belief that all people are

created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable

rights that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

By overwhelming majorities, Americans want cheaper and more universal health care and drugs,

quality secular public schools, and free higher education available to all.

The right to unionize, protections from discrimination, freedom from fear of death by firearms,

a clean environment and immediate action to mitigate the climate

emergency, affordable housing, an end to corporate monopolies that lock small businesses

out of the marketplace while generating obscene profits.

A humane end to our twin crises of homelessness and untreated mental illness.

Medical-based rather than prison-based prison programs to help people suffering from addiction.

Morbidly rich individuals and giant corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, strengthened Social Security and real Medicare,

the right to vote without challenge or interference, the right to abortion, IVF, and birth control,

and punishment for leaders who lie us into wars, commit torture,

and try to overthrow our republic by deceit and violence.

If we were truly a democratic republic, the imagined goal of the Declaration of Independence,

we would have already adjoined every other developed country in the world in having all these things.

Instead, we are the world's outlier.

How is it possible in a nation that has for over two centuries proclaimed itself a republic where,

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