Time for a New American Revolution

Thoughts on the 249th anniversary of the first

The upside down flag is a signal of distress. This one flew at the Hands Off rally in Olympia, Washington April 5. Credit: Wikipedia Commons

9 minute read

The constitutional republic in danger

Another July 4. It is 249 years after independence was declared in Philadelphia, one year shy of a quarter millennium of U.S. national existence. Tonight I will go up on my deck overlooking Lake Union and watch Seattle’s fireworks display. I wouldn’t miss the show, but this year there’s not much to celebrate.

It is a moment when it is uncertain whether the constitutional republic will survive in any recognizable form by the time the nation’s 250^th birthday is celebrated. A Supreme Court decision last July granted immunity from criminal prosecution for presidential actions undertaken as official duties. A recent decision stripped the power of district courts to make rulings affecting the entire nation, reversing decisions that would limit the Trump administration’s power to revoke birthright citizenship. Now we must look to a rightist Supreme Court to rule for the nation.

These decisions were made by judges picked by the Federalist Society, which holds the doctrine of the unitary executive. This states that all powers of the executive branch vest with the president. Trump executive orders seeking to take away the independence of regulatory agencies fall in line with this. As do the recent two decisions, putting near unbridled power in the hands of a man inclined to push the envelope as far as possible.

Add to that the effective creation of a domestic army under the Big Bad Bill, tripling the ICE budget to $30 billion and increasing its detention budget 265% to $45 billion, 62% higher than the entire federal prison system. Expect a proliferation of Alligator Alcatraz’s such as the new installation in Florida bearing marked resemblance to barracks at Auschwitz or WWII Japanese internment camps. Concentration camps are nothing new in U.S. history. After all, Hitler and the Nazis took inspiration from native reservations as a model for their own camps. Those who believe these forces will be turned only on immigrants should recall how Border Patrol troops were deployed to Portland during the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings. This is the creation of a domestic military force under the direct control of the president.

The picture this presents has the most grave implications, tipping towards worst case scenarios. The separation of powers that balances the executive, legislative and judicial branches has been skewed heavily in the direction of the executive. Trump has seized authority at every step, and he can be expected to take full advantage of the powers the Supreme Court and Congress have given him. We face the prospect of executive dictatorship.

Trump will play his hand to the hilt, and likely overplay. The question is whether the immune response of the U.S. body politic will be strong enough to resist this onslaught, and the answer is uncertain. Ultimately, only a societal uprising will turn this back, and one that spans the political spectrum, including traditional conservatives alarmed at the decline of the rule of law. It has to be deeply rooted in the communities where we live.

A crisis long in coming

Ultimately, the question has to turn to how we arrived here. We’ve been coming to this point for a long time. Since the early 20^th century, the power of the imperial presidency has increased exponentially. Congress no longer declares wars. Presidents do. Since the 1970s, Supreme Court decisions equating money with speech have made funders the dominant force in politics, largely determining who we are allowed to vote for. Congress has been increasingly locked up by interest groups setting the parameters for debate. Finally, the Supreme Court has accumulated a rightist supermajority, appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote.

Even more deeply implicated is the constitutional system itself, as indicated by that last point. Increasingly, as populations have sorted and Democrats have concentrated in larger states, the advantage the Constitution gives smaller states in the electoral college makes minority wins such as Bush 2000 and Trump 2016 more likely. That derives from the provision giving every state two senators, whether it is California with 39,529,000 people or Wyoming with 585,000. Add to that computer-generated gerrymandering creating safe legislative districts, and the system is twisted beyond genuine possibilities for true representative democracy.

We have to ask ourselves whether this system can be fixed, and whether the travesties we face today are not an aberration, but its logical outcome. Honest answers are no to the first and yes to the second. The roots of our emerging national crisis are in the system itself and to emerge from the crisis intact we need to fundamentally change it. In other words, we need a New American Revolution.

The seeds of the crisis were planted in the first revolution, the one we commemorate today. The mythology of overthrowing the tyranny of King George notwithstanding, the revolution of 1776 was conceived and led by the ruling class of the 13 colonies. The oligarchy of its day saw the potential to build a great empire in North America eclipsing the power of the tiny islands across the Atlantic. The British saw this too, and were trying to hold the colonies back. In 1763 they imposed a line forbidding further settlement west of the Appalachians.

This gored the interests of many colonial leaders, notably George Washington who became the richest man in the colonies as a land developer and speculator. When we learned in grade school he was a surveyor, this is what it really meant. Washington wrote that this ban could not stand.

The colonial elite was also alarmed at the growth of slavery abolition sentiment in Britain. Slavery pervaded the colonies, only to be abolished in the north between 1777 and 1804. Shipping and financial interests in the north were deeply involved, while the New England rum industry, one of the region’s largest, made much of its profit having its product traded for slaves. Meanwhile, in Britain where possession of slaves was illegal, a slave gained his freedom through the Somerset case. The colonies made much of their earnings off tobacco and other crops raised by slaves, and the owners feared loss of their productive capital.

The elite stirred up the populace by sparking rage against taxes being imposed by Britain to cover its costs in the wars which had driven the French from North America. The taxes were relatively modest, but they were a point of agitation. In the end, perhaps a half of the colonists sided with the revolution, while 20% were loyalists, and the rest were stand asides. Many of the loyalists went to Canada, explaining why resistance to the U.S. remains deep rooted north of the border. As for King George the tyrant, that was largely propaganda. The monarchy had already been limited by the power of Parliament following the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Those taxes were acts of Parliament, rather than the king.

When the fighting started in earnest, it should come as no surprise most of the Blacks and native tribes who joined the battle came in on the side of the redcoats. Blacks knew their best chances for freedom and natives knew the best way to hold back a tide of white settlement rested with the British. In the end, both were on the losing side.

There were genuine democratic sentiments among many of the common people who joined the revolution. Afterwards, there were democratic stirrings in the states. But they were pushing a course the elites could not abide, paying war debts with paper money rather than precious metals. Finally, taxes to pay debts sparked Shay’s Rebellion in Massachusetts, alarming the elite. Led by Alexander Hamilton, they convened the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 to create a strong federal government capable of limiting democracy in the states and putting down rebellions. The anti-democratic elements of the Constitution that stifle us today emerged from that.

Thus, the very crisis we face today grew out of our earliest beginnings. Oligarchic rule was there from the start. In our era it was set back by the 1930s Depression and the social reforms of the time. But it came back with a vengeance beginning in the 1970s, and then with the neoliberal shredding of progressive taxation, the public sector and labor power in the 1980s and 1990s, a work accomplished by both political parties. The racism reflected in the enslavement of Black people and genocidal land thefts from native tribes is at the center of Trump’s war on immigrants and general racist undertone of his politics. In general, today’s elites play an old game of divide and conquer, tricking working class whites into voting against their best interests by setting them against non-white groups, as is evidenced by the way the Big Bad Bill will strip Medicaid and food assistance.

Finally, a nation that has been at war most of its existence, first building a continental empire and then in the 20^th century a global empire, is seeing empire come home in the form of a new domestic army and internment camp system. The U.S. has staged coups in dozens of countries to replace democratic governments with dictatorships. Now it seems to be generating one in the imperial metropole, the U.S. itself.

Change comes from rooted struggle

Over its history, the bounds of democracy have gradually been expanded in the U.S. Originally the vote was only given to white male property owners, and then to all white males. After decades of struggle, women won the vote across the U.S. in 1920, after securing it in 23 states. Black people’s right to vote in the South was only guaranteed with the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, and that after great and often deadly struggle. Even those rights have been eroded by Supreme Court decisions.

The key point is that the extension of democracy, as well as what we have of social gains such as old age pensions, unemployment insurance and labor organizing rights, was only secured by popular struggle. Those struggles began in particular places, in cities and states. If there is to be a New American Revolution, it will emerge in the same way.

The recent primary victory of Zohran Mamdani in the New York mayor’s race has heartened many. It is the model for what progressives have long advocated. Instead of running to the center to pick up independent voters, a declining segment, Mamdani ran clearly to the left with a progressive program offering real answers for the economic stresses people are feeling, such as affordable housing and public groceries. He turned out people who don’t usually vote, especially younger people who voted in far greater numbers than usual. Instead of relying on big money funders, Mamdani ran a people power campaign mobilizing tens of thousands of volunteers.

Whether the decrepit Clintonian centrists of the Democratic Party establishment will eventually undermine Mamdani is an unknown. But he has made a strong start, notably overcoming the phony charges of antisemitism raised by Zionist funders, media and party hacks with the support of many young Jews.

In my hometown of Seattle, activist Katie Wilson is running a similar grassroots campaign against corporate Mayor Bruce Harrell. She is also forwarding a progressive platform including just taxation and social housing. Katie has a solid record as one of Seattle’s most effective organizers. I’ve worked with her myself and can attest to that. There is a good chance she can pull a Mamdani in Seattle.

As The Raven has long advocated, we must build power in place, in cities and communities where progressive populations are centered and where democratic possibilities are greatest. We build from that local base to take power in state governments. These are the places where we can not only build resistance to the current regime, but forward and implement the ideas that will make better places and a better nation. That will make a New American Revolution.

There are darker possibilities, a national breakup, a new civil war. The centrifugal tendencies in the U.S. are greater than many people recognize. I’ve written about that here. That California Gov. Gavin Newsum could seriously propose California might withhold federal taxes, as he has, shows some boundaries have already been crossed. To be honest, there are many including people I count as friends who question whether the U.S. should continue at all. Some of the strongest tendencies toward a new declaration of independence are in my part of the world, the West Coast and Cascadia. And perhaps the national system is so intractable this will be the only course.

From my standpoint, it would be better to work for a different system overall, to stir social movements in all parts of the U.S. working for genuine democracy and change. I would not want to leave public lands in the hands of many western states, nor would I want to abandon people of color populations in the South. In every part of the country significant progressive populations exist, even in the reddest of states. I would rather see us go together than go it alone.

On this July 4, 2025, one year short of 250 years of national existence, the constitutional republic is challenged in a way it hasn’t been since the Civil War. We can hope for better outcomes than a bloody conflict or national breakdown, with the likelihood of huge death tolls. Let us call to those better angels of our nature which have expanded democracy and justice over these 249 years, working in the places where we live to organize power and forward the ideas that will make a just and sustainable future. That is the ground for a New American Revolution.

It is with those thoughts that I will watch the fireworks over Lake Union tonight, looking forward to a time we might have something to celebrate.

Since I started The Raven 4 years ago, I have sought to point out ways we can navigate the multifaceted crisis facing us, ecological, social, economic and political, to make a truly better world. It’s challenging work, especially in times like these. I appreciate any support you can offer to sustain my efforts, either through a paid subscription or one-time donations in $5 increments through the Buy the Raven a coffee button. Subscriptions are a modest price, only $6/month or $5 with an annual subscription. And please like and share.