Rabb spoke at an event billed as “America at 250 — Trump Fascism, Historical Erasure, and the Battle Over Truth” at People’s Plaza on Independence Mall in Philadelphia.
He denounced the country as based on “stolen land and stolen labor.” He lashed out at the Declaration of Independence:
“Those screeds that were very lofty but were notoriously catering to a performative aspect of collective genius that purposely erased indigenous and black peoples…It created distance from an empire to help very privileged people continue that privilege and ultimately institutionalize that through the U.S. Constitution many years later. But it certainly did not provide independence to indigenous and black peoples. And we cannot talk about anything today without acknowledging that this is a nation born on stolen land & stolen labor.”
It is entirely appropriate to raise the inherent conflict in the words of the Declaration and the continuation of slavery. In Rage and the Republic, I discuss the inherent hypocrisy of our Declaration in declaring natural rights without denouncing the enslaving of so many in the country:
“The Founders understood that inescapable truth of natural law when they signed a Declaration that ‘all men are created equal.’ Despite this defining line, even some who opposed slavery saw little hope for a revolution that would seek to overthrow both the monarchy and slavery. Jefferson would have to make the concession in striking critical language from his draft. While Jefferson’s legacy would be forever stained by his own maintenance of slaves, he did attempt to condemn the institution of slavery. He was rebuffed by his fellow delegates who were willing to acknowledge the existence of a natural law while ignoring its implications for the enslaved people in the new nation.”
Rabb goes further than raising the inherent conflict with slavery and suggests that our system is inherently fascistic and not worthy of celebration for the ideals that it articulated for a new nation.
He ignores how the Declaration laid the foundation for a more perfect union. Ours was the first major Enlightenment Revolution based on the belief that our rights came not from the government but from God. It embraced the principles that would ultimately prevail in ending this shameful stain on our nation.
“Fascism is not new. These systems of harm are built into the very fabric of this nation,..You cannot kill the beast until you name it. And that is difficult for many people who want to embrace certain tropes, certain narratives, whether it’s the American dream or American exceptionalism or the Protestant work ethic or so many other myths that do us no — they are a disservice.”
Rabb is not the first figure on the far left to denounce the “American dream” and “the Protestant work ethic” as harmful “myths.”
He pledged that he would be “one of the few unapologetic reparationists going to Congress,” joining a growing number of Democrats demanding billions in reparations for black Americans.
Many on the left are using the anniversary to condemn our founding principles or to decline to celebrate our Independence Day. This includes such demonstrations in states such as Massachusetts, which declined to join the celebration on the Mall for the 250th anniversary.
Recently, we discussed how a Massachusetts church ended the long-standing celebration of the Fourth of July to focus on the “on-going process within the congregation to better understand our own whiteness.”
John Adams once wrote his wife Abigail to predict that Independence Day would be:
“celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”
Adams was virulently opposed to slavery as were many of the Founders. Many openly discussed their hope that the new nation would address slavery after it succeeded in establishing its independence. Those lofty values were ultimately realized at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives in the Civil War.
The claim that fascism is a system “built into the very fabric of this nation” is absurd and demagogic. This nation defeated fascism and remains the oldest and most successful republic in history. Indeed, the left is claiming to be fighting fascism while seeking to take over the Supreme Court in a court-packing scheme while limiting such core human rights as free speech.
In “killing the beast,” the far left is threatening to unleash the very forces that destroyed the contemporary revolution in France at the time of our founding. These voices are not new. They have been part of this republic — and other republics — throughout history. They are the voices of mobocracy that we rejected 250 years ago. That is precisely why Benjamin Franklin was right that this is, and will remain, our Republic to keep.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”