The Declaration of Independence was written to declare America’s independence from Great Britain. During those times the course of action taken to go public with grievances and issues was by writing documents on paper. John Hancock penned out a list of grievances in the Declaration which were aimed to discredit the King of England and his oppression on America. “He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.” This is one example from the text where the people state they are upset with the immigration reforms or lack thereof set by England.
A couple of weeks ago a respected news outlet The Washington Post posted a story with the headlines saying, “Donald Trump launches sexist, McCarthyite Twitter attack on ‘Morning Joe’ hosts.” “Morning Joe” is a morning talk show aired on MSNBC that touches on political topics that they deem important for their viewers. Naturally the topics this year have been focussed on Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton. It is revealed in a video from that article that host Joe Scarborough denounces his support for Trump when Trump began to talk about banning Muslim people from entering America. Scarborough states, “I’m never going to vote for a guy that is saying he’s going to ban somebody just because of the god they worship” Trump responded by tweeting a serious of tweets including this: “Some day, when things calm down, I’ll tell the real story of @JoeNBC and his very insecure long-time girlfriend, @morningmika. Two clowns!” This is just one example of Trump’s brash commentary towards his peers and critics.
Scarborough aired his issues with Trump’s immigration policy which is similar to what the writer’s of the Declaration did. The major difference from these two readings are the vast differences in the methods of communicating. The Declaration of Independence was written with immense thought and consideration whereas in today’s society people can fire off tweets like the one Donald Trump sent to Joe and Mika.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/declare.asp
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/08/22/donald-trump-launches-sexist-mccarthyite-twitter-attack-on-morning-joe-hosts/?utm_term=.13fe4821090c
So I think you do a good job of giving us a summary of both accounts. I’m interested in your wanting to connect the issues of immigration in Declaration’s list of grievances to this exchange between Scarborough and Trump. I have two concerns about your post though: 1) I don’t know that you are really engaging the language of these two examples. You have quotes, which is great, but your point is such that you could actually make it without the quotes. For you the point of comparison is just the complaint about immigration. You say that more thought went into the Declaration of Independence, but how much thought goes into something is technically very hard to prove, nor if we can prove it does it immediately imply that the thing that has had more thought put into it is substantively different (better) than the thing which has less thought put into it. I think your comparison would have been stronger if you had acknowledged that these two texts are doing two different things. Scarborough isn’t making a declaration of independence right? He’s not starting his own country? or justifying his armed resistance to those who call themselves the government.
My second concern is that I got a little confused about whether you’re comparing Scarborough’s complaint about Trump’s immigration ideas to the Declaration’s complaint, or if you are connecting Trump’s immigration ideas to the Declaration? I thought it was the former until the end when your comparison is between the thought that went into the Declaration vs the thought that went into Trump’s statement.