If They Wrote the Declaration of Independence in 2025...

And what they'd probably leave out.

Let’s be honest: if certain people in power today were handed the task of writing the Declaration of Independence, we’d be lucky to get anything more than a vaguely worded corporate mission statement and a logo that looks like it was AI-generated from the prompt, freedom, but make it vaguely authoritarian.

Let’s pretend, though. Let’s pretend they tried. Here’s how I imagine it going, and more importantly, here’s the part they’d hope you wouldn’t Google.

📜 “We hold these truths to be self-evident…”

Except not the truths that make us uncomfortable. Or the ones that make the founding fathers look like flawed, land-owning, human-trafficking men. Those are woke opinions. Ban the books that mention them.

→ Here’s what they don’t teach about the real Declaration.

👑 “That all men are created equal…”

Men, obviously. Not women. Not enslaved people. Not Indigenous tribes. Certainly not trans kids.

Also, let’s create a limited-edition commemorative coin for sale to celebrate this lie.

→ Reminder: the phrase was aspirational, not actual.

🚫 “That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”

Yes, but only if your Creator is politically convenient. Otherwise, your rights are very much alienable.

See also:

• voter suppression

• anti-protest bills

• reproductive rights bans

• whatever fresh hell rural Utah lawmakers cook up for the next session

→ Lawsuits over the erosion of civil liberties.

💥 “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive... it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it.”

Unless you try, then you’re labeled an angry mom at a school board meeting. Or told you’re paid to be a protester. (Still waiting for my check from the Hands Off protest.)

Or maybe you just dared to put rainbow ribbons on your porch.

→ Creating penalties to stifle dissent.

🪦 “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes…”

Totally. Which is why the colonists stayed chill about tea taxes and just journaled their feelings.

Oh, wait—no, they dumped 92,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor and then declared war.

But please tell me again how drag queens are a threat to democracy.

We’ve gone from no taxation without representation to no sparkles without legislation.

→ What the Founding Fathers really protested.

✂️ What they’d definitely redact in the 2025 version:

• The part about the King obstructing immigration?
  Oops. That doesn’t fit the wall-building narrative. And the “Muslim ban,” what about that fun xenophobic policy?
  → Historical irony is doing the most here.

• The part about abolishing free systems of laws?
  Can’t mention that while rewriting history curriculum.
  → And yet here we are.

• The part about mock trials and manipulated justice?
  Definitely not while screaming “law and order” at school board meetings and then turning around and gutting oversight. (And that’s not even delving into the atrocities of human trafficking people with brown skin to awful prisons and refusing court orders to bring them back.)
  → OCR offices gutted, protections gone.

🔥 Modern Grievances, 2025 Edition

If Thomas Jefferson were around today, he might have trouble deciding what to put in the updated grievance list—because we’re living a reboot. And not the good kind.

Let’s break it down:

“He has refused to Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”
Then: King George denied fair representation.
Now: Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and disinformation campaigns designed to undermine democratic representation—because if you can’t win the vote, just rig the map.

“He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly…”
Then: He shut down legislatures that disagreed with him.
Now: Expelling elected lawmakers in Tennessee, firing FBI agents who pursued Jan 6 prosecutions, censoring NIH publications—because expertise is dangerous when it contradicts the party line.

“He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone…”
Then: Control the courts, control the outcomes.
Now: Judicial loyalty to Trump is a GOP litmus test. Rule of law? Only if it polls well.

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people…”
Then: Spies and enforcers on the king’s payroll.
Now: Civil servants purged and replaced with political loyalists in agencies like DOGE. Efficiency—only if you define that as “total control.”

“He has protected them, by a mock Trial, from punishment…”
Then: Law-breaking soldiers walked free.
Now: Jan 6 insurrectionists are being rebranded as patriots—and pardoned or glorified by elected officials.

“For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent…”
Then: Taxation without representation.
Now: Billionaires get write-offs; working families cover the bill. And DC residents still have no voting representation in Congress. But yeah—freedom.

“For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury…”
Then: Shipped abroad for punishment.
Now: Immigrants stripped of status or deported with no due process. Some even sent to El Salvador—because exporting people is easier than facing them.

“He has transported us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences…”
Then: Exile by kangaroo court.
Now: Deportation for minor infractions, legal status revoked without warning, asylum seekers treated as threats instead of humans.

“He has abolished our most valuable Laws…”
Then: Colonial laws erased overnight.
Now: Executive orders issued like Starbucks mobile orders—frequent, fast, and rarely thoughtful.

“He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns…”
Then: Literal war.
Now: Journalists called “enemies of the people,” public servants threatened, whistleblowers hunted. All while the MAGA PR machine spins it as patriotism.

“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us…”
Then: Inciting frontier violence.
Now: Stoking fear of migrants, trans people, and anyone else convenient to scapegoat this week. (Next week’s list pending.)

Sure, let’s pretend this script isn’t being recycled right in front of us with more hashtags and less powdered wig.

✍️ So why bring this up?

History isn’t just written by the victors.

It’s written by the ones with access to the printing press, to the textbook publishers, to the legislative majorities.

Today:

• We’ve got Substack.

• We’ve got Threads and Bluesky.

• We’ve got tiny protest signs made on Canva and rainbow porch ribbons in Utah^.

This is our history too. And we’re still writing it.

💬 Let me know in the comments:

What line from the Declaration would get censored in your state?

And what would you add if you were writing it today?