Trump: The Denier of Freedoms, in Chief
Trump had the Trumpiness to tell a Fox News interviewer that he wanted people to have freedom not to wear a mask, as if he was the guaranteer of our freedoms. Nothing could be further from the Truth. Actually, with Trump, everything is further from the Truth.
I don’t have an editorial staff to make a list of all of the Freedoms that Trump has tried to deny us, or the dangerous ‘freedoms’ that he has not halted or even created. I will just pick out a few from my viewpoint.
Environmentally, we had the Freedom to regulate clean air and healthy water supplies: Denied!
The First Amendment gives us the right to peaceably demonstrate: brutally Denied to those in the nation’s most prominent place, Lafayette Park across from the White House, just so that Trump could get a photo op holding a Bible upside down. Trump has opposed the Black Lives Matter marches and movement which is the Civil Rights movement of our decades. They march for Freedom from police harassment and even murder by police.
Trump has blocked any congressional testimony, which is the Freedom of our Congress to have oversight over our Government. He has even fired whistleblowers who are protected by law.
Trump tried to block his distant niece Mary Trump from publishing her book or being interviewed. She had signed an NDA about an inheritance settlement, but that couldn’t deny her Freedom of Speech about Trump’s behavior or psychology. It also makes Trump’s attempted eternal blocking of John Bolton’s book on account of secrecy illegitimate.
Trump initially blocked the Freedom of international students to take internet classes to avoid Coronavirus infection. He has tried to block children, teachers, staff, and parents from the Freedom of protecting themselves from in-person classes in the time of the Plague.
Trump has dog-whistled threats at the Press, disparaged them at rallies, called them liars and their reports Fake News, and pressured networks and newspapers to fire reporters, to deny us all the Freedom of the Press.
At the same time Trump has suppressed our Constitutional Freedoms, he has created a very unwelcome false ‘freedom’: that to not wear a mask, regardless of how dangerous it may be to others, or in violation of state or local requirements. Those who do not wear masks when needed are in essence playing Russian Roulette with everyone they get near to, since they may be spreading the Coronavirus asymptomatically.
Hopefully on January 20th, we can all say the famous words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank God Almighty, we are Free at Last”.
