A Righteous Cause

Erick Erickson on Jul 4, 2025

I find it funny when people attack me as MAGA. Someone yesterday said I would do whatever "Dear Leader" demanded. They clearly do not know me. In fact, radio stations that air my show often get complaints from MAGA that I am not sufficiently deferential to President Donald Trump. I actually lost a station because the owner did not think I should ever criticize Trump.

I think I should hold my own side accountable. I have convictions that transcend partisanship. I have no desire to cheerlead a fellow sinner. No politician is perfect, and I believe my principles are more important than any person on the political scene. Trump will go. Principles will not.

Notwithstanding all of that, I prefer his policies more than what I would get with the Democrats. There is also one overwhelming, compelling reason to support Mr. Trump, and it affected my thinking in 2024 more than anything else. Ironically, I talked about it and wrote about it the least in large part because it is not a substantive reason to support Mr. Trump. But it is my personal reason to support him over Kamala Harris.

Next year will be the 250th birthday of the United States of America. Were Ms. Harris the President next year and progressives in charge, we would be forced to hear sob stories of the founding white slave owners while being forced to celebrate the transgender amputee midget people of color whose sacrifices made victory possible. Instead of praise for Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Adams and Franklin we'd all have to sit through insufferable lectures about the non-Jewish people of color and lesbians who built this country and how white people ruined it all.

Every one of you knows this is true.

We all know our Founders' flaws. Slavery is this nation's original sin. But there is no reason to constantly dwell on it and sulk about it. Two-hundred forty-nine years ago, our forefathers ushered in a new nation and a righteous cause conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal. Eighty-five years later, to preserve the union, Americans shed their blood, dying to make men free. The sins of the nation were paid for in the blood of its men on battlefields.

When our Founders drafted the Declaration of Independence, they were not sparking a progressive revolution. Just a decade later, the French would do that and, in the process, chop off the heads of their fellow citizens. The French wanted to throw off the old and embrace something new -- new values, new ideas and new liberties. The Americans did not. Just read the Declaration.

The American Founding Fathers launched a revolution because they believed they were Englishmen. Their grandfathers had secured the English Bill of Rights. Their ancestors had summoned a King to Runnymede and demanded he give them rights in the Magna Carta. The Americans saw themselves as Englishmen, and the British saw them as colonists. So, the Americans rebelled not to secure new rights, but to secure very old rights they insisted were theirs.

"(T)o secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness," Jefferson wrote.

The Declaration of Independence was the mission statement of the American Republic, and the Constitution that followed was the legal framework protecting the intent of that mission. A group of flawed men, with a vision greater than themselves, with buy in from the lower classes to the upper classes of society, pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the righteous cause. We should be glad, proud and unashamed. We should recognize their heroism and courage, not distract ourselves with lesser people and lesser things. The men were flawed, complicated, bold, and brave revolutionaries. Their cause, now our cause, remains righteous. Happy Independence Day.

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To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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