Fear & Loathing On The Fourth Of July In Trump’s America

A young woman who simply identified herself as ‘Lady Liberty in Mourning’, holds a vigil at the Elmwood Village Farmers Market in Buffalo, New York a few days after a November, 2024 U.S presidential election that saw Trump returned to power. Photo by Doug Draper

A Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter/publisher Doug Draper

Posted on the Fourth of July, 2025 on Niagara At Large

In November of last year, my wife Mary and I crossed the border to Buffalo, N.Y. to visit the last farmer’s market of the year in that city’s Elmwood Village and to take in a few estate sales in the grand old homes there.

While at the farmer’s market, we crossed paths with a young lady dressed head to toe in a Statue of Liberty costume who also head hear face covered in a dark grey funeral to, as she told us, express her mournfulness and fear over the recent election of Donald Trump to a second term as President of the United States.

That encounter with the lady in the dark veil punctuated what would turn out to be our last trip across the border to Buffalo or anywhere else in the U.S.A., and I sometimes still think about how much it foreshadowed the nightmare that was to come for her country and for ours.

For Canada, that nightmare includes all of the threats Trump continues to pose to our economic welfare and our sovereignty – not to mention the stories about Canadians venturing over to Trump’s America and having  the tires slashed or windows smashed on their cars, or being detained for hours or more because of something negative that agents wearing masks may have found about Trump on their laptop or smart phone.

This is the time of year that, for as many years as I can remember, I have always wished our American neighbours across the border a Happy Fourth of July. But this year, for the first time, I can’t bring myself to do it – certainly not when anyone who is truly paying attention to what is going down in the U.S. is witnessing, in real time, that country losing its democratic freedoms and everything that Statue of Liberty stands for to a  military-like dictatorship marinated in us versus them violence, anger, greed and hate.

I have dear friends in the United States who have been stressing to me that “many of us down here did not vote for him” and that many of those who did vote for him “did not vote for this,” meaning that they just wanted to see the price of eggs go down and make sure people crossing the border were doing it legally, etc.

In all due respect to my friends, it is hard to believe that the more than 70 million Americans who voted for Trump could not see this wrecking ball coming, unless they chose to remain willfully ignorant about the long-time record of this man and the MAGA forces around him.

So on this Fourth of July, my mind turns, once again, to that young lady dressed up as Lady Liberty with her face covered in a dark veil.

I think of her and I have  little doubt that if I lifted that veil today , I would see nothing but tears as she carries her luggage to the Peace Bridge to make her way over to our side.

If you do cross over Lady Liberty, I am confident that most of my fellow Canadians will welcome you with open arms.

• Doug Draper, Niagara At Large, on the Fourth of July, 2025

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