2026 is a year of significant anniversaries for the United States of America. Most obviously, this coming fourth of July marks the 250th anniversary – the semiquincentennial – of the Declaration of Independence. But 250 years ago this week, on Jan. 10, 1776, in an influential pamphlet entitled “Common Sense,” founding father Thomas Paine advocated for the establishment of a new nation in which “the law is king.” The Declaration of Independence was adopted six months later. It was the start of what is now held up as the world’s oldest, continuous, modern constitutional democracy. Regrettably, that claim, that title, seems less credible than it was even a year ago. Donald Trump’s systematic consolidation of power, aided and abetted – if not encouraged – by a supplicant congress and overly sympathetic courts, has recreated some of the conditions against which the 13 colonies rebelled, two and a half centuries ago. This is precisely what the founding fathers feared might happen. The same Thomas Paine warned that those “who look upon themselves born to reign and others to obey, soon grow insolent…” and that when they “succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit…” No less than George Washington foresaw the tendency of “those entrusted with its administration… to consolidate the powers and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.” 2026 is also a midterm election year. As our neighbours prepare to vote and celebrate this year, they would do well to ask themselves whether they are really willing to see their great nation return to the sort of tyranny it was created to end.
