Today is the day that America adopted the greatest breakup letter of all time, TJ’s Declaration of Independence.

It’s the day that Will Smith saved us from aliens.

On this day, it seems likely that a man in Florida will have an awful experience with fireworks.

Today is Independence Day, and it is the day that Justin Amash officially announced he was leaving the Republican Party.

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

So why is Amash dissolving the political bands which have connected him to the Republican party?

According to his op-ed this morning in the Washington Post – hyper-partisanship.

“In recent years, though, I’ve become disenchanted with party politics and frightened by what I see from it. The two-party system has evolved into an existential threat to American principles and institutions.”

To punctuate his point, he chose to echo words from George Washington’s farewell address, where he predicted the exact kind of “partisan death spiral” Amash describes. In it, Washington describes:

“The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. …

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”

In Amash’s mind, partisan politics, radicalized by a two party system, have provided incentive for party members to jettison principles for expediency when “their side” is in power. This includes basic founding principles such as the “most basic tenets of our constitutional order: separation of powers, federalism and the rule of law. The result has been the consolidation of political power and the near disintegration of representative democracy.”

Amash extends an open invitation for more to join him, because “Preserving liberty means telling the Republican Party and the Democratic Party that we’ll no longer let them play their partisan game at our expense.”

“Today, I am declaring my independence and leaving the Republican Party. No matter your circumstance, I’m asking you to join me in rejecting the partisan loyalties and rhetoric that divide and dehumanize us. I’m asking you to believe that we can do better than this two-party system — and to work toward it. If we continue to take America for granted, we will lose it.” – Justin Amash

You can also hear more from Representative Amash in this recent interview on the Brian Nichols Show.