Burke: Recognize that we are living through history in the making
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, May 20, 2026
I was a lobster-back reenactor, a British Redcoat for the 10 or so years my wife and I marched with the 1st Maryland Loyalist Battalion as we celebrated the American Revolution.
Our “hobby,” called “living history,” finds men and women portraying Roman Legionaries, medieval knights and Viking marauders, as well as Redcoats and Rebels, the Yanks and traitor-secessionists of the American Civil War and all sides of WWI and WWII.
It’s an immersive way to not just study history but to actually (kinda) “live” it.
But that’s not the type of “Living…History” I’ve got on my mind these days.
Today, my focus is “living” the history being made every day: right here, right now.
And, I am sad to report, the history we are living is fast becoming the history of a nation in decline, a people who have allowed a callow, shallow, narcissistic, grifting, know-nothing, wanna-be dictator destroy much of what Americans have literally died for over the past 250 years.
Now when we reenacted we tried to live ala the original Maryland Loyalists – open-fire cooking; sleeping on straw-filled sacks; and the men wearing full, wool uniforms even in the middle of July whether we were in New York, Maryland, Virginia, or the Carolinas.
But for every hour dressed in wool I probably spent three hours home, researching the battles, people, and politics surrounding the nation’s struggle for independence.
And today, one of my lifelong regrets is that I did not apply the same concentration to the history-in-the-making I was living.
Sure, I was aware-plus of “Viet Nam” (from the relataive safety of an ammunition ship in the Mediterranean), the bitter struggle of black Americans for equality and justice, and the Mid-East wars; but I wasn’t as focused on that history unrolling before my eyes as I could (should?) have been, or am now, as Donald Trump and his minions, acolytes, and sycophants bring our country low.
So let’s look at today’s “history,” especially the under-the-radar stuff, not just the billion-dollar ballrooms or a war-of-choice in Iran.
First, and foremost, is the tragic demise of Congress as a functional branch of government.
Both the Senate and the peoples’ House of Representatives have abandoned actually governing – the Senate paralyzed by a combination of a Republican majority and the filibuster rule and the Republican House by its total capitulation to Trump’s madness. Republican legislators are making no effort to control spending, declare war, levy tariffs, or perform any oversight of the Executive branch, as the Constitution says they should.
And this, gentle reader, is a seismic shift in the balance of power in Washington and abandonment of the governing framework crafted by the Founding Fathers.
But there’s more, consider:
Termination of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility activities across all federal agencies and contractors
Officially recognizing “America as a Christian Nation” and pushing for a Christian theological state
Abandoning all federal contracting requirements to build a ballroom or resurface the Reflecting Pool
Using social media, especially Trump’s Truth Social and Musk’s X, as official instruments of public policy
Trying to kill birthright citizenship
De-funding a million grants from the Centers for Disease Control to states that didn’t support Trump in 2024
DOGE firings and data theft
Trump’s name and/or picture on US passports; US currency, and the Kennedy Center
Destroying the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau costing you $19 billion in fraud recovery
Transforming the DOJ into the Trump Revenge Department to prosecute his critics
Killing US AID and over 760,000 souls (literally)
Downsizing the Weather Bureau, endangering millions
Opening protected federal lands to resource extraction, grazing, and development
Trump (the individual) suing himself (the president) for $10 billion, setting up a billion dollar payoff scheme he spends with no oversight
Inclusion of crypto into the currency system
Eliminating Forest Service research into wildfire prevention and other dangers to our national forests
Gerrymandering red states to give Republicans an electoral edge and eliminate black participation in voting and representation
Selling a $1-million Trump Gold Card or $100-thousand-per-H-1B visa for entry to the US
Killing Federal Executive Boards eliminating coordination between Washington and state and local governments
Buying $20.9 billion worth of private-sector companies, fundamentally changing the government-business relationship
Dumping the Constitution’s Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 establishing states’ voting procedures primacy
Endangering federal judges by calling them treasonous and anti-American
Attacking freedom of the press labeling reporters “enemies of the state,” investigating them, and kicking them out of the Pentagon and the White House
Emasculating the EPA by rescinding science-based greenhouse gas findings, vehicle emissions, and clean water regulations
Turning ICE loose to kill Americans
Abandoning almost all accountability for rampant, blatant corruption at the highest levels of government, and so much more dealing with maternal health, poverty, environmental tracking, Greenland, Canada, global warming, the Dept. of Education, the Post Office and the Pentagon.
Every day we are all “living…history.”
But “life” sometimes crowds out our ability to truly fathom Trump as he wreaks havoc with the Constitution and drives our economy off a cliff.
I can never forget what Former Vice President Dick Cheney said waaay back in 2022: “There has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.”
So we must turn out, No Kings-8-million-strong, and recognize, as Judge Roger L. Gregory, Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals did, “As is becoming far too common, we are confronted again with the efforts of (Trump’s) executive branch to set aside the rule of law in pursuit of its goals.”
We can’t let this happen.
Stay strong. Fight back. Never surrender. Vote.
Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.
