This Unhappy Fourth

Sad
The Chinese came up with the first firearm in 1132. The Arabs developed their guns about a hundred years later. Europe finally got in on the shooting spree around 1340…and it would be Europeans who brought guns to Africa and Latin America. So the gun has been around throughout most of the world for a pretty long time…way longer than what we know and celebrate as national independence both at home and abroad. As much as the NRA wants us to believe that we get our freedom from the barrel of a gun, the cold, hard truth of it is that the gun was incidental to America’s war for independence. If the gun was at all a determinative factor, China, and the nations of the Middle East, Africa and Latin America would have been models of democracy long ago but they most certainly are not and many have not even come close.  
The historical fact is that the liberal revolutions of the late 18th and early 19thcenturies owed far more to a free press than firepower. The invention of the printing press and subsequent spread of newspapers, pamphlets and books centuries after Europe became an open carry continent is what led people to believe they--not some entrenched royalty--should have control over their civic lives. (In fact in his fascinating PBS series, How We Got to Now , Steven Johnson suggests that tea may have been more important than guns in advancing the cause of freedom in that it was while sitting around tea rooms that men began sharing the radical, disruptive ideas they read about in newspapers that would lead them to revolt). Once that idea of freedom took root, the revolutions to follow would’ve been carried out with crossbows or broadswords or slingshots…whatever means necessary. The gun was merely the tool at hand; it was the inspiration and logic provided by the printed word that galvanized the fights for freedom.
It is important to reflect on this undeniable historical truth on this most unhappy Fourth of July when we suffer under a malignant presidency that is openly and persistently at war with a free press. Donald Trump’s inability to comprehend and tolerate media criticism as the price of governing a free people should not come as a surprise to anyone who has followed his litigious career and relationships built on NDAs (non-disclosure agreements). His thin skin is as prominent a personal characteristic as is his clownish orange hair. What is far more unsettling about his near daily attacks on journalists and what he calls fake news (which is actually just any news he doesn’t like) is the support he continues to maintain among his voting base and Republicans in Congress. 
His attacks reached DEFCON 5 level absurdity when he recently tweeted out a video of him wrestling a caricature of a CNN reporter to the ground and pummeling him. It was hard enough to contemplate that the alleged leader of the free world had the time and inclination to send out such an advertisement for his phony toughness. But add to it that he chose to share this bully-boy assault on one of our fundamental freedoms just days before the nation gathers to celebrate those freedoms.
It is not hard to imagine the scene that would’ve transpired if Barack Obama tweeted a video of him similarly wrestling a caricature of the NRA to the ground and pummeling it. Angry gun owners would pour into the streets threatening insurrection, and Mitch McConnell and his posse of undertakers would glumly appear before the TV cameras and solemnly intone: “The President’s assault on the Second Amendment is unprecedented and reveals his contempt for our fundamental freedoms.”
Trump, alas, attacks the First Amendment with impunity and not only escapes criticism from those sworn to uphold the Constitution, but is cheered on by those who voted for him. Trump is who he is…who he has always been…a self-absorbed conman. It has always been there for those with eyes to see and brains to think. This unhappy Fourth is not his shame, it is the shame of those who put him in office to settle their petty resentments and who take perverse satisfaction in his undoing of government. They’ve taken their citizenship and our democracy so lightly that they’re willing to stand by—silent at best, laughing at worst--as their chosen buffoon mocks, abuses, and ultimately destroys the very first and most critical of our bill of rights.