Closer to the Edge is a reader-supported publication on the Substack platform. It recently posted the following “
Declaraction of Resistance” for the July 4th holiday of 2025.
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SECTION I: THE PREAMBLE
When in the course of human events, a government abandons its duty and weaponizes its power against the people it was meant to serve, it becomes the right, and the obligation, of the people to resist.
We are not extremists. We are not ungrateful.
We are citizens who have watched our leaders celebrate the suffering of others, legislate away human dignity, and laugh as they strip healthcare from the sick and food from the hungry. We have waited. We have hoped. We have pleaded for decency.
But the government of the United States, as it now stands under President Donald J. Trump, no longer serves the public good.
It does not preserve life – it endangers it.
It does not secure liberty – it undermines it.
It does not promote happiness – it enshrines cruelty.
This is not the product of incompetence. It is intentional.He governs with malice. He legislates with vengeance. He drapes himself in flags and lies and calls it patriotism, while millions bleed beneath the weight of his policies.
We do not rise today to tear this country down.
We rise to tear it back from those who have hijacked it.
We rise not in rebellion against America, but in defense of its soul.
SECTION II: STATEMENT OF BELIEFS
We hold these truths to be undeniable:
That all people possess inherent worth, regardless of income, origin, race, gender, health, ability, or immigration status.
That the purpose of government is not to glorify power, but to protect life, preserve liberty, and ensure justice for all.
That when any government abandons these principles — when it rewards the wealthy while abandoning the sick, when it elevates the powerful while crushing the vulnerable – it becomes a danger to the people it claims to serve.
That a free society cannot survive on cruelty and lies.
That silence in the face of injustice is complicity.
That the measure of a nation is not found in its markets or its missiles, but in how it treats those with the least.
That no office, no oath, no title – not even that of President – places a man above accountability.
And that the American people are not subjects. We are not property. We are not obstacles to be managed or enemies to be punished.
We are the People. And we are done asking to be heard.
SECTION III: GRIEVANCES
To prove this tyranny, let facts be submitted to a candid world:
1. Trump has turned the office of the presidency into a machine of retribution, targeting judges, journalists, immigrants, women, disabled people, LGBTQ+ Americans, and political opponents with open threats and weaponized policy.
2. He has declared his intent to act as a dictator “only on day one”, then proceeded to centralize unchecked power through executive purges, loyalty oaths, and the dismantling of independent agencies.
3. He has used the power of the state to pardon insurrectionists, granting clemency not for mercy, but to embolden future violence.
4. He has instructed federal agencies to violate basic human rights, including family separations, mass detentions, and inhumane camps, all under the banner of border enforcement.
5. He has stripped healthcare from millions through cruel legislation, while enriching corporations and billionaires under the lie of “freedom.”
6. He has celebrated economic cruelty through the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, a sweeping act of violence designed to give tax breaks to the rich while slashing Medicaid, food assistance, and social safety nets.
7. He has cheered these atrocities with performative glee, giving thumbs-up for cameras and blasting celebratory music while millions lost coverage and dignity.
8. He has undermined elections through lies, suppression, and conspiracy, encouraging gerrymandering, limiting ballot access, and promoting false claims of fraud to delegitimize the vote.
9. He has encouraged political violence, referring to opponents as “enemies,” invoking military power against civilians, and promoting the cult of strength over the rule of law.
10. He has weaponized religion to justify cruelty, cloaking injustice in the language of faith while persecuting those who believe differently.
11. He has silenced whistleblowers, fired inspectors general, and punished truth-tellers, ensuring no dissent survives within his administration.
12. He has treated public office as private property, using power not to serve the nation, but to enrich himself, shield his allies, and protect his image.
13. He has treated truth as an enemy, flooding the nation with lies, silencing scientists, distorting history, and turning disinformation into state doctrine.
14. He has emboldened white supremacists and armed militias, praising them as “very fine people,” inviting them into political spaces, and threatening consequences for those who stand against hate.
15. He has attacked the rights of women, revoking reproductive autonomy, defunding healthcare, and empowering state-level theocracy.
16. He has abandoned climate responsibility, gutting environmental protections, reversing clean energy policies, and treating the Earth as disposable.
17. He has looted the public treasury through corruption and cronyism, funneling contracts to allies, donors, and family members while punishing independent institutions.
18. He has stacked the courts with ideologues, not to uphold justice, but to protect power and erode civil liberties for generations.
19. He has attempted to criminalize protest and dissent, surveilling organizers, banning books, threatening educators, and branding activists as terrorists.
20. He has refused to condemn foreign dictators, choosing instead to align with autocrats while undermining democratic allies and alliances.
21. He has inflamed division at every opportunity, governing not as a president of the people, but as a cult leader of grievance and fear.
22. He has ignored suffering in favor of spectacle, prioritizing headlines over humanity, reelection over relief, and cruelty over competence.
23. He has governed without shame and legislated without mercy, transforming a democracy into a machine of sanctioned cruelty.
24. He has used public institutions to shield himself from justice, obstructing investigations, intimidating prosecutors, and bending law enforcement to his will.
25. He has sought to erase history, attacking education, censoring curricula, and punishing those who teach the truth about race, oppression, and resistance.
26. He has degraded the dignity of the presidency, reducing it to a platform for personal vengeance, corruption, and humiliation of the weak.
27. He has responded to every petition for redress with scorn and escalation, answering protest with force, critique with threats, and compassion with cruelty.
SECTION IV: ATTEMPTS AT REDRESS
We have tried. Again and again, we have tried.
We marched. We wrote. We voted. We called. We pleaded. We organized. We exhausted every democratic tool this nation offers to those who dissent.
We begged for decency. We asked for restraint. We pointed to the suffering, the data, the warnings. We sounded every alarm. And when we did, he laughed.
He called us liars.
He called us traitors.
He called us enemies of the state.
When families begged for healthcare, he cut their lifeline.
When students rallied against guns, he gave the gun lobby more power.
When the planet burned, he poured gasoline.
We sought dialogue; he gave us propaganda.
We demanded oversight; he gave us vengeance.
We exposed his cruelty; he branded it strength.
In every branch of government, at every level of power, he ignored our calls for justice.
And when we cried out for help, he celebrated his ability to do nothing.
He left us only this: resistance.
SECTION V: THE FORMAL DECLARATION
Therefore, we, the People – abandoned by our president, betrayed by our institutions, and resolved in our duty – do solemnly publish and declare:
That this government, as it stands under Donald J. Trump, no longer commands the moral authority of its people;
That the man who leads it has violated every principle of democratic leadership and human decency;
That we will no longer obey the silence he demands, nor the fear he enforces;
That we will resist him at every ballot box, every courthouse, every statehouse, and every place where people gather in the name of justice;
That we will expose his crimes, challenge his lies, and confront his agenda – openly, relentlessly, without apology;
That we do not seek to destroy the United States, but to redeem it – from the man who desecrates its promise while wrapping himself in its flag.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on each other and on the power of a people awakened, we pledge to fight with truth, with love, and with fury.
We do not consent.
We will not forget.
And we are coming.
Signed,
All who refuse to kneel
See also the following chronologically-ordered Wild Reed posts:
• Marisa Kabas: “We’re Witnessing a Coup By an Unelected Billionaire Propped Up By a Felonious President”
• Protesting Trump’s “Dystopian” Immigration Policies
• Timothy Snyder on Resisting the Oligarchs’ “Logic of Destruction”
• “This Is Essentially Viktor Orbán’s Playbook”
• “An Extremely Clever Ruse” by and for the Rich: Owen Jones on Elon Musk’s Coup
• “To Be a Rib in This Body of Our Country”
• Quote of the Day – February 21, 2025
• Ralph Nader: “We’re Heading Into the Most Serious Crisis in American History. There’s No Comparison”
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• “This Is How Democracy Unravels”
• Jason Stanley on How Fascism Works
• James Greenberg on Trumpism: “The Tactics Are Unmistakable”
• Tony Pentimalli on Trump’s “Death Warrant for Democracy”
• The Reckoning Is Coming
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like”
• Peter Bloom: Quote of the Day – June 10, 2025
• Brent Molnar on the Silence of the Generals
• “Protesting Is What Patriotism Looks Like in Public”: The “No Kings” Protests of June 14, 2025
• Norman Solomon: Quote of the Day – June 16, 2025
• Naming the Pattern . . . and Its Source
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 20, 2025
• “No Kings”? Absolutely. But Also “No Oligarchy”
• Ro Khanna: Quote of the Day – June 24, 2025
• “This Is Fascism”
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
2024
• Will We Let Fascism Come to America?
• Chris Hedges on the End of the American Empire
• What the Republican Party Now Stands For
• Neoliberalism vs Neofascism: Cornel West on the State of U.S. Politics
2023
• Jeff Sharlet on the Fascist Ideology of Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene
• Robert Reich: Quote of the Day – April 11, 2023
2022
• “How Can One Overreact to a Mortal Threat to American Democracy?”
• William D. Lindsey: Quote of the Day – August 12, 2022
• “Come for the Racism, Stay for the Autocracy”
• Historian Nancy MacLean: The Threat to American Democracy Is at “Red-Alert”
• Chauncey Devega on the Ongoing Danger of the Trump Cult
2021
• Insurrection at the United States Capitol
• The Republican Party in a Nutshell
• Dan Rather on America’s “Moment of Reckoning”
• Republicans Pose an “Existential Threat” to American Democracy
2020
• “We Have an Emergency On Our Hands”: Marianne Williamson On the “Freefall” of American Democracy
• “Fascism Is Upon Us”
• Trump’s Legacy
2019
• President Trump, “We Hold You Responsible”
2018
• Quote of the Day – October 28, 2018
2017
• Trump’s America: Normalized White Supremacy and a Rising Tide of Racist Violence
• In Charlottesville, the Face of Terrorism In the U.S.
2016
• Progressive Perspectives on the Rise of Donald Trump
• Trump’s Playbook
• Progressive Perspectives on the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election
• Progressive Perspectives on the Election of Donald Trump
