On Dec. 8, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress: 

“Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

He asked Congress for a declaration of war, formerly entering our historically isolationist country into World War II. This is something U.S. presidents used to do. The “infamy,” synonymous with dishonor, disgrace and shame, was Japan’s, not ours.

Last month was the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, violent assault on the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification of our presidential election results. We know with certainty that this assault was predicated on a lie about fraudulent election results.

While initial outrage was bipartisan, we now know with certainty that most of the Republican Party has adopted this lie, in direct contradiction to their oaths to defend the Constitution.  This infamy is ours – specifically Donald Trump and those who support his lie.

Currently, at the slightest hint of civil unrest, President Trump will deploy our military into American cities, ignoring the fact that the unrest is due to the provocation of masked and unaccountable federal agents who perform their duties in unnecessarily brutal and often illegal manners.  

This is the same president who sat on his butt for three hours and did nothing except watch the Jan. 6 Capitol assault.  

This is the same president who has pardoned over 1,500 people lawfully convicted of their role on Jan. 6.  Meanwhile, the police officers who defended our Capitol continue to suffer from PTSD, including multiple suicides. Many have lost their careers and their health, and are struggling to get their lives back.

There is another day of U.S. infamy even worse than Jan. 6.  

On April 12, 1861, Confederate military forces attacked Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C. Americans killed U.S. soldiers to support the institution of slavery. The resulting Civil War killed over 600,000 Americans.

President U.S. Grant deployed military forces in former Confederate states after the war. He did it to protect Black Americans, free and entitled to vote per Constitutional amendments, from death and violence by racists who started a war to defend slavery.  Presidents Kennedy and Johnson had to do the same thing almost a hundred years later.

President Trump enjoys almost universal support from so-called Christian Nationalists. This exclusively White voting bloc continues to defend memorials which “honor” those who served the Confederacy.

There are four Gospels in the Bible which detail all of Jesus’ teachings and parables, the new rules for a Christ-based religion. I seem to have missed the chapters about killing fellow countrymen in order to continue to enslave our fellow man.

Jair Bolsonaro was elected president of Brazil in 2018. Like Trump in 2016, Bolsonaro was a far-right populist. He lost his re-election bid in 2022.  A mob of his supporters stormed federal government buildings, claiming election fraud and calling for a coup (the violent overthrow of a government by a small group).

Brazil’s Supreme Court initially blocked Bolsonaro from seeking office again until 2030. This was the punishment for attempting to undermine the validity of the election through unfounded claims of voter fraud, and for abusing his power by using government communication channels to promote his campaign and allege fraud.  

For these same reasons, the U.S. House impeached Trump but a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate refused to vote to confirm the conviction.

Brazil later discovered Bolsonaro was planning a self-coup, utilizing the military he once served in. He was indicted in November, 2024, put under house arrest in August 2025, and convicted in September, 2025. He is now serving 27-plus years in prison.

Special Counsel Jack Smith meticulously investigated similar charges against Trump and was poised to pursue a conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court gutted this process by granting extraordinary presidential immunity no one can find specified in our Constitution.

Which country do you think most exhibits a functioning democracy reflecting deep roots established over multiple centuries?