Commentary: Are liberals destroying America's ideals?

The opening paragraph of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 wrote, "America is now divided between two opposing forces: woke revolutionaries and those who believe in the ideals of the American Revolution."

What a perfect example of fake news. By taking on the mantle of American values and attacking their opponents as destroying those values, the Heritage Foundation has done what Trump and his allies always do: They accuse their opponents of doing what they themselves have actually done. In truth, it is the MAGA-Right that perverts and destroys our founding values.

This distorted view of our founding documents was formalized in Matthew Spaulding's 2009 book "We Still Hold These Truths." Spaulding is a former Director of American Studies at the Heritage Foundation. In the book, Spaulding faults liberals for perverting the vision of the Founding Fathers and calls liberalism the enemy.

For example, in speaking of the "certain unalienable truths" proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, he states that liberals have "rejected the idea of self-evident truths and enduring principles."

How bizarre. It is liberals, i.e., Democrats, who embrace the words of the Declaration of Independence. Given the MAGA-Right's assaults on immigrants, LGBTQ people, people of color, and women, it is clear that it is the MAGA-Right that has rejected these truths.

As I stated in my 2004 book "We Still Hold These Truths: An American Manifesto," the position that support for conservative arguments can be found in our founding documents is not without basis. But the MAGA-Right disavows traditional conservative positions.

They advocate instead the dismantling of the Federal government to conform more to the anti-Federalist view—a weak and limited national government—that was the basis of the Articles of Confederation, rather than the view that was adopted by the Founding Fathers after the failure of the Articles and was the basis for the Constitution—a strong and multi-faceted Federal government with proscribed checks and balances.

True, some of the Founding Fathers, such as Jefferson, were concerned that a strong federal government would constrict citizens' rights, so he proposed what became the Bill of Rights.

But for the MAGA-Right, there is no recognition, appreciation, or tolerance for the point of view of the rights of others. For example, as MAGA Christians in what they consider a Christian country, they believe they can forbid gays to marry and demand that women act in accordance with MAGA beliefs. This is not protecting MAGA's freedom of religion. This is imposing MAGA's religious views on others, violating others' rights. They pursue the denial of liberty to others.

If you read Spaulding's book—if you didn't read it carefully—you could come away thinking he is a reasonable man who respects our founding documents and history. He has, for example, a section on equality and equal rights that is a powerful exposition, which one would think would presage support for all civil rights legislation as well as the DEI efforts of government. He certainly talks the talk.

But when it comes to the implementation and interpretation of these words, he doesn't walk the walk, but distorts their meaning to suit his own political ends. He and the MAGA-Right have a one-sided view of liberty.

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are profoundly liberal documents for their era, relying on the balancing of powers and rights. What the MAGA-Right is attempting to do, and in the short term is succeeding in doing, is to destroy that balance, whether it's between the branches of government or the rights of people. Their goal is to create a government and system of laws that radically depart from our historic ideals and values.

This destruction of American ideals can only be stopped by the people, by their realizing what the Trump administration is doing and how it affects them and their children. Only by their votes can this perversion of America be stopped.

Given the massive misinformation campaign by the MAGA-Right, for this to happen, the Democratic Party must mount a counter-campaign to inform the public about America's true ideals—what our founding documents and the Founding Fathers said—how the Trump administration cynically perverts those ideals, and how that perversion impacts us all. That is the focus of my book, "We Still Hold These Truths: An American Manifesto."

The MAGA-Right and Spaulding speak of equality, freedom of religion and speech, and liberty being dependent on a respect for both rights and responsibilities—these are indeed America's ideals—but they just mouth the words; their implementation of those concepts limits and perverts the Founders' meaning. And that meaning comes from the Enlightenment—the words were aspirational—not from the facts on the ground at that time.

For example, in saying that all "men" are created equal, the Founders meant that all mankind have certain unalienable rights. Their "self-evident" came from the fact of creation—that "we were all of the same species; made by the same God"—not what they saw looking around them. These rights don't belong just to white men or the MAGA-Right.

The traditional meaning of "balance of rights and responsibilities" is that someone exercising his rights has the responsibility not to interfere with the rights of another. However, the MAGA-Right's interpretation is that others have the responsibility not to interfere unjustly with the practice of their rights, such as by regulating business. They aggressively interfere with the rights of others because, again, they do not acknowledge their rights.

But beyond this information campaign, the Democratic Party must rediscover the source of its policies and communicate that source to the people. This source is not "liberal" thinking or progressive "woke" thinking. Instead, the foundation of all its policies is the Declaration of Independence.

To this end, I have proposed a domestic Mission statement for the Democratic Party:

"To build a country of greater opportunity for all, where:

— Each and every American has a real chance to experience the promises made in the Declaration of Independence … ‘that all men (mankind) are created equal, that their Creator endows them with certain unalienable Rights … Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness;’

— government meets its responsibility as outlined in the Declaration … ‘to secure those rights’ … within the constraints of fiscal responsibility; and

— all citizens have a shared responsibility to support the government’s efforts to secure those rights and promote the public good, each according to their ability, and to not, through the exercise of their rights, impinge on the rights of others."

This statement is the moral philosophy, the heart, the soul of American democracy. This is, or was, America’s common faith.

I believe this is the path out of the abyss of Trumpism and back to a government and policies that will make America great again—government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

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Ronald L. Hirsch is a teacher, legal aid lawyer, survey researcher, nonprofit executive, consultant, composer, author, and volunteer. He is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Chicago Law School and the author of "We Still Hold These Truths."

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