“PRÉCIS ON CELEBRATING PRESIDENT TRUMP’S FOURTH OF JULY 2026: AN AMERICAN EULOGY” (WITH VIDEO)

FIRST THINGS. Before I launch into another polemic regarding The American Crisis, let me first give God praise for my Marriage to SUZETTE CAÑETE KELLY on JULY 4, 1981 (45 years ago today). Sometime soon I will share with you The Story. It is, as you might imagine, quite a tale!

• HINT: Met Suzie on Easter Sunday, April 19, 1981 (in church); Married her 75 days later on July 4 in that same church sanctuary. Interestingly, my spiritual birthday is this coming October 30, 2026, exactly 47 years ago. FACT: The numbers, “45” and “47” are writ upon His Plan for us in “2026: The Year of the Beast.” Selah.

1. THEOLOGY

SCRIPTURE. “[Hosea], say to your brethren, ‘Ammi [or You-are-my-people],’ and to your sisters, ‘Ruhamah [or You-have-been-pitied-and-have-obtained-mercy].Plead with your mother [your nation]; plead, for she is not My wife and I am not her Husband; [plead] that she put away her [marks of] harlotry from her face and her adulteries from between her breasts, lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her as a wilderness and set her like a parched land and slay her with thirst.

Yes, for her children I will have no love nor pity nor mercy, for they are the children of harlotry. For their mother has played THE HARLOT; she who conceived them has done shamefully, for she said, “I will go after my lovers that give me my food and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my refreshing drinks.” Therefore, behold, I [the Lord God] will hedge up her way [even yours, O Israel] with thorns; and I will build a wall against her that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them [inquiring for and requiring them], but shall not find them. Then shall she say, “Let me go and return to my first husband, for then was it better with me than now.”

For she has not noticed, understood, or realized that it was I [the Lord God] Who gave her the grain and the new wine and the fresh oil, and Who lavished upon her silver and gold which they used for Baal and made into his image. Therefore will I return and take back My grain in the time for it and My new wine in the season for it, and will pluck away and recover My wool and My flax which were to cover her [Israel’s] nakedness. And now will I uncover her lewdness and her shame in the sight of her lovers, and no one shall rescue her out of My hand.

I will also cause to cease all her mirth, her feastmaking, her New Moons, her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts and appointed festive assemblies. And I will lay waste and destroy her vines and her fig trees of which she has said, These are my reward or loose woman’s hire that my lovers have given me; and I will make [her plantations] an inaccessible forest, and the wild beasts of the open country shall eat them. And I will visit [punishment] upon her for the feast days of the Baals, when she burned incense to them and decked herself with her earrings and nose rings and her jewelry and went after her lovers and forgot Me,’ says the Lord.” – HOSEA 2:1-13, AMPC

KEY TERM. “THE HARLOT.” ‘Zanah’ [זָֽנְתָה֙]: “From a primitive root, ‘Highly fed and therefore wanton.’ ALSO: “To commit Adultery of voluntary ravishment; to commit Idolatry; to commit Fornication; to go A-whoring; to Prostitute.” NOTE: “זָנָה (‘Zanah’) describes both literal Sexual Prostitution and figurative Covenant Infidelity”. The verb appears about ninety-three times, spanning Torah, Historical Books, Wisdom Literature, and Prophets. Its cognate nouns—זֹנָה (‘zonah,’ prostitute), תַּזְנוּת or זְנוּת (‘taznuth’ / zenuth, harlotry), and מְזִמָּה (‘mezimmah,’ lewdness)—share the same theological weight: ‘ABANDONMENT of the exclusive Covenant Bond.’”

QUOTATION. “There are indeed millions of Christians in the United States, but most Americans who think that they are Christians truly are something else, intensely religious but devout in ‘The American Religion,’ a faith that is old among us, and that comes in many guises and disguises, and that ‘Overdetermines much of our National Life.’” – HAROLD BLOOM, The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation, 1992, 2006; edited

Publisher Note. “‘Bloom regards the American Religion as successful by his standards for religious imagination; however, he distinguishes this success from the Social and Political Consequences of the Religion.’ At times he criticizes elements in the American Religion for their political activities, saying: ‘He is politically appalled by what may be some of its Consequences. Since the Reagan-Bush National Republicans have become one with the American Religion, my fear is that we will never again see a Democrat in the Presidency during my lifetime” [D. Oct. 14, 2019]. – 2006, p. 46; edited

COMMENTARY. “This chapter continues the figurative address to Israel, in reference to Hosea’s wife and children. Let us own and love as brethren, all whom the Lord seems to put among His children and encourage them in that they have received Mercy. ‘But every Christian, by his example and conduct, must PROTEST [‘To make a solemn declaration expressive of opposition’] against evil and abuses, even among those to whom he belongs and owes respect. Impenitent sinners will soon be stripped of the advantages they misuse, and which they consume upon their lusts.’” – MATTHEW HENRY, Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, 6 vols., 1708-1710; edited

1. TEACHING

“Love is to be sincere and active [the real thing—without guile and hypocrisy]. HATE what is evil [detest all ungodliness, do not tolerate wickedness]; HOLD ON TIGHTLY to what is good … [But] If the foundations [of a godly society] are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” – ROMANS 12:9; PSALM 11:3, AMP

Most all of you by now understand my deep reverence for the Idea of ‘Foundations,’ especially as they concern the ROOTS OF THE AMERICAN ORDER. That phrase taken from the renown political philosopher, Russell Kirk’s classic book of the same title published in 1974.

AMERICA’S SEMIQUINCENTENNIAL (250 YEARS). Thus, on this most Solemn Occasion, July 4, 2026, I am honor bound to expound a few thoughts on what has become the most critical and controversial American Birthday in all of its long history.

Fair Warning: This will not be your standard star-bangled Political Encomium by any measure; rather shall it serve is EULOGY for a Nation that is in its Final Stages of existence. Selah.

To accomplish this, we turn to the thoughtful work of political scientist DR. JOHN J. PITNEY, JR (Yale, 1985). He is Roy P. Crocker Professor of Politics at Claremont McKenna College, and the author of Un-American: The Fake Patriotism of Donald J. Trump (2020).

Here is my SUMMARY of his recent article, “Trump’s Affront to the Founding” (The Bulwark, June 24, 2026; edited).

• OPEN. “DONALD TRUMP IS PUTTING ON a Celebration of something he doesn’t believe in. ‘America 250’ is supposedly about the Declaration of Independence, the Anniversary of which we celebrate on every July Fourth. But through his words and actions, Trump has turned his back on the Principles enshrined in the Declaration.”

• EQUALITY. “The most famous of those Principles is that ‘All men are created equal.’ In 2004, Trump told Wolf Blitzer: ‘But the phrase that “All men are created equal” is a wonderful phrase, but unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. All men are NOT created equal. Some are born with a genius and some are born without.’ Five years later, he made substantially the same point in an interview with the New York Times: ‘They say all men are created equal. It’s not true. Some people are born very smart, some people are born not so smart.’”

• NATIVISM. “‘One clear sign [of his worldview] is his repeated praise for immigration from mostly White countries and his disparagement of immigration from mostly Black and Brown ones.’ ‘Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden—just a few—let us have a few. From Denmark,’ he said last year. ‘But we always take people from Somalia, places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime. The only thing they’re good at is going after ships.’”

• RACISM. “If this were not explicit enough about Trump’s belief in Somalian inferiority, consider his remarks about alleged Medicaid fraud in Minnesota: ‘Somalians, can you imagine? And they don’t do it. A lot of very low IQ people, they don’t do it. Other people work it out, and they get them money, and they go out and buy Mercedes-Benzes.’”

• POWER. “‘Just as he rejects Equality, Trump also denies that there should be limits on his Power.’ In remarks to reporters last year, he said: ‘I have the right to do anything I want to do … I’m the President of the United States.’ And when Marc Caputo of Axios recently asked him what the Iran war had taught him about the limits to his power, he said: ‘There are no limits.’ This view would have stunned the Declaration’s Signers. They urged Rebellion against the King precisely because of his ‘long train of abuses and usurpations.’”

• REVENGE. “One of the Declaration’s grievances was that George III had ‘Obstructed the Administration of Justice.’ So much of the Second Trump Administration is summed up in that short phrase. Trump granted ‘Mass Clemency’ to the people who attacked the Capitol and then backed an abortive plan to pay them. He has stocked the Justice Department with Loyalists who have investigated people he sees as enemies. And he has issued Executive Orders against law firms that fought him in court, restricting their access to government buildings. Fortunately, the courts have pushed back.”

• HYPOCRISY. “The Signers of the Declaration did not always live up to their own ideals. Thomas Jefferson, the primary drafter of the Declaration, owned slaves, as did most of the signatories. Bowing to pressure from the Southern colonies, Congress deleted Jefferson’s passage denouncing the slave trade. Years later, John Adams signed the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts, which expanded government authority and undercut civil liberties. The gap between Principle and Practice posed a challenge to subsequent generations. Martin Luther King put it best in 1963, when he called on the Nation to ‘RISE UP and live out the true meaning of its creed.’”

• TRUMP. “‘Trump REJECTS this project of fulfilling our Nation’s Principles out of hand. When we hold his conduct up against the charges brought forth 250 years ago, it is clear that he aspires to the type of Tyrannical Rule this country rejected.’ He wants to restore Confederate monuments, honoring the Insurrection that would have toppled everything that the Declaration represented. His administration removed Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth from the national parks’ 2026 fee-free calendar and replaced them with‘Flag Day/President Trump’s Birthday.’ He has vulgarized and politicized the Semiquincentennial at every turn, treating it as a ‘Celebration of himself’ more than of the United States.”

DK NOTE. On the basis of this minimal list of his moral and political “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” I REFUSE to celebrate the Birth of our Nation now held so very firmly, it would seem, in the vicious Thrall of King Donald I.

To do so for me at least, would be to commit both a form of ‘Political and Spiritual Treason.’ In addition to this, there is a much GREATER AMERICAN CRIME that looms just over the next phase of our increasingly disastrous road.

1. AMERICAN BABYLON

To complete our conversation on this inarguably solemn occasion at the Quarter Millennial Anniversary of this now-tortured Nation, I propose THREE PERSPECTIVES on the American Experience. I trust you shall find one of them somewhat suitable to your own celebrations of The Fourth of July, 2026.

Please Note: None of these three are representative of the Trump View; we have already dealt with and dispensed with that perspective. Also Note: Each of these three display a SPIRIT OF LAMENTATION in increasing levels of criticism.

1. TRADITIONAL: ANNE APPLEBAUM (Yale, London School of Economics, Oxford). [Commenting on Vice President J.D. Vance give his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in 2024 wherein he defined his ‘American-ness’ in terms of Place of Origin in Kentucky]. “But here is where Vance and I differ: I do not think that the presence of my ancestors in a Galveston cemetery makes me American. On the contrary, ALL OF US—me and Vance; Vance’s in-laws, born in India; my great-great-great grandparents, born in Alsace; our respective children and eventual grandchildren—are, were, or will be Americans because we live in the community created by the ‘Abstractions’ that he dismissed in his speech. More important, I am convinced that these Abstractions, all of those words vowing to ‘Establish Justice’ and ‘Secure the Blessings of Liberty,’ are much stronger, much more powerful than the pull of our respective clans and graveyards. Why? Because they can unite and inspire a Nation that contains people with origins and ancestors as radically different as those belonging to me and Vance.” – “Trump’s Anti-Patriotic Trap,” The Atlantic, July 1, 2026; edited

• TEMPORIZED: DR. KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ (Dordt College, University of Notre Dame). “‘In the main, historians are not divided about The Founding. The scholarly consensus is that the Separation of Church and State is what the Founders wanted and is a distinctly American innovation.’ While most Founders were religious to varying degrees, they took concrete steps to prevent the Establishment of Christianity. The Delegates to the Constitutional Convention declined to include a test of religious belief for public service in the new Constitution. ‘The Founders did not dedicate the Nation to God in the Document. They did not set out to create a Christian Form of Government.’ Yet in contrast to this consensus, many Conservative Christian Writers teach what I refer to in this book as a ‘Christian Past that Wasn’t:’ A collection of Christian Myths, Folklore, and Stories relating to our Nation’s past that exaggerate the truth and hijack history … They teach ‘Another Founding of America,’ using Myths to claim America was founded as a Christian Nation predominantly for White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. These Storytellers believe the Early European Emigrants established ‘a Covenant with God,’ which made Protestant Christianity the Preeminent Religion in Law and Culture. Because of this supposed ‘Covenant’and their belief that Indigenous People were savage, uncivilized heathens, Europeans believed they were justified in taking the land. They preach that the Founders were godly, orthodox Christians who believed Government should support Christianity.” – “The Christian Past that Wasn’t: Mythbusting Christian America,” Substack, June 30, 2026; edited

• TELEOLOGICAL: DR. STEVEN ANDERSON (Grand Valley State University, Capital Bible Seminary, Dallas Theological Seminary). “The Book of Revelation gives more attention to an entity called ‘Babylon the Great’ than to any other single subject, with more than two chapters (17:1–19:4) dedicated to a discussion of this entity. As it is presented in that section, Babylon the Great is clearly the most significant player in the World of the End Times. As such, its identification ought to be obvious to anyone living in the End Times … ‘This article will argue that Babylon the Great is the United States of America, and that this identification is definitive and excludes all other possibilities’ … Babylon the Great is a World Hegemon, a country which dominates World Politics, Economics, and Culture in the End Times. Further, the Text of Revelation indicates that it is a UNIQUE ENTITY in the world … ‘The Great Polis [City-State] …

It uniquely makes all the nations of the world wealthy, reigns over the nations of the world, imposes its culture on all the nations, and leads them in a massive downward spiral of materialistic depravity that culminates in worldwide worship of Satan and the Antichrist during the Second Half of the Tribulation Period. These are things that can only be done once, and the United States is now doing them. Never before in history has a single country dominated all the other countries of the world and enjoyed such preeminence in comparison to all the others.” – “The Case for Identifying Babylon the Great with the United States of America,” Truth Only Bible, July 29, 2021; edited

DK NOTE. From this we are in a better position to judge our past history more accurately, our present state, and more crucially, our ‘Future Destiny.’ Personally, I have rejected the first two perspectives in strong and convicted favor of The Third View clearly argued by Dr. Anderson that the United States of America is, inarguably for me at least, that Last Great World Power that shall soon be utterly destroyed by God Himself (viz. The Antichrist) in the Second 3.5 Years of the Seven-Year Tribulation Hour. Selah.

1. LAST THOUGHTS

‘Yet even in this Last Hour or mere Minutes as we hurtle toward the very End of the Age spoken of by The Christ, we are not lost, beloved.’ Hear His Word to His disciples as He was about to astonishingly Ascend back to Heaven after His 40-day Post Resurrection Appearances to over 500 people.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations [help the people to learn of Me, believe in Me, and OBEY My [words], baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you; AND LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS [remaining with you perpetually—regardless of circumstance, and on every occasion], even to the end of the age.” – MATTHEW 28:19-20, AMP

FINAL PREPARATIONS. Therefore, what shall be our most important Duty to God prior to His Command to Rescue as many as possible from the Coming Fires? Simple: ‘PREPARE ourselves and our households!’ So does our Merciful Lord extend His Forgiveness for a few moments more to all who are still deciding about these grave matters.

We find this Last Invitation through the gracious Words of the Prophet Hosea from whom we were so severely warned.

TO ALL WHO REPENT: As with The Israel of Old.

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her [Israel] and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak tenderly and to her heart. There I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor [troubling] to be for her a door of hope and expectation. And she shall sing there and respond as in the days of her youth and as at the time when she came up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be in that day, says the Lord, that you will call Me Ishi [my Husband], and you shall no more call Me Baali [my Baal].

For I will take away the names of Baalim [the Baals] out of her mouth, and they shall no more be mentioned or seriously remembered by their name. And in that day will I make a covenant for Israel with the living creatures of the open country and with the birds of the heavens and with the creeping things of the ground. And I will break the bow and the sword and [abolish battle equipment and] conflict out of the land and will make you lie down safely.

AND I WILL BETROTH YOU TO ME FOREVER; [‘aras’ (וְאֵרַשְׂתִּ֥יךְ), ‘pledge to marry or espouse’]; yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will even betroth you to Me in stability and in faithfulness, and you shall know (recognize, be acquainted with, appreciate, give heed to, and cherish) the Lord.”- HOSEA 2:14-20, AMPC

CODA. God’s Final Appeal to His people, the Church, is directed straight at Man’s First Sin in the Garden thousands of eons ago. In the words of ANDREW MURRAY’S classic book on HUMILITY (2001; edited):

“PRIDE must die in you, or nothing of Heaven can live in you.”

Such a simple praxis, yet the most difficult thing a Man – or a powerful Nation – is apparently able to do. Selah.

MEDIA

YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/dRka5pZhJNM