There are very important distinctions between then and now
There really isn't much of a distinction at all other than the "titles" of the leader. It's the same people with the same
cultural beliefs running roughshod over those who don't look like them, act like them, or believe like them.
In other words, "water seeks its own level".
America's founding documents - Declaration of Independence and US Constitution - were a major step forward in the rights of citizens to govern themselves, as opposed to the subjects of monarchs. England had made advancements with Parliament, and the USA improved on that.
Except SOME "people", like MY ancestors, WHO were NOT considered "citizens" back then. They were chattel PROPERTY.
That whole part of history was white-washed and CONTINUES TO BE white-washed - literally as we speak, including within the past couple months -
Since then, as you noted, multiple Amendments have broadened those rights to former slaves and women, and civil rights legislation was passed to strike down Jim Crow.
In other words, despite setbacks, steady progress has been made. There is truth in MLK's statement that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
And what these same descendants of those founders "giveth", they can and HAVE "taken away".
The current fascist regime threatens to turn it sharply back the other way. The Party of Lincoln has become an utterly corrupt tool of oligarchs intent destroying rights and replacing our imperfect representative democracy with authoritarian rule.
That already started over 20 years ago with
Shelby County v. Holder (2013), with John Roberts personally taking away rights and safeguards from me and my family with the overturning of Sects. 4 & 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
Sect. 2, of that Act, which is about all that is left, will be gone this year at the end of this current SCOTUS session. Roberts is Taney on steroids.
Most of America's Founders were men of the Enlightenment, but they were men of their time. The man who wrote "all men are created equal" as a defining principle of the new nation owned slaves, as did our first president who set the precedent for the peaceful transfer of power.
They were white wealthy landowners and had little concern for anyone else not one of their kind.
Our current president is a creature of ignorance and malignant narcissism who attempted , by conspiracy and violence, to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. Now he has every intent to prevent free and fair elections to keep and expand power for himself and despots to follow.
His grandfather was a draft-dodging Bavarian, chasing gold and making money off of prostitutes in brothels, after he fled to Canada. He went back home and met another Bavarian who he married to produce 45's father, once they settled in the U.S. His mother was an "off the boat" Scot. So 45 is nothing more than the distillation of those cultures and mindsets.
The long arc of righting wrongs and extending the power of the vote to more people is facing an existential crisis that must not be ignored.
This country has been there done that before.
As I say over and over, any "progress" has only been in effect when this society enforces what is basically "the honor system". Take that away and the whole thing collapses.
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