John Armiger, the late owner of Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens, was a history buff and quiet patriot. Each Fourth of July, he started the day by reading the Declaration of Independence at his home in Lutherville.

He convinced me to do the same, and I highly recommend it.

With a turning-point election just months away, it would be good for my fellow Americans, especially those who again support Donald Trump for president, to pause and appreciate what prompted the rebellion against the King of England.

It wasn’t just “taxation without representation.”

It was George III’s opposition to anything that approached representative democracy. He “refused his Assent to Laws” by dismissing acts of colonial legislatures and giving the British parliament supreme authority to make law for the colonists. He was oppressive in many ways, refusing, for instance, to allow the colonies to have an independent judiciary and trial by jury for the accused.

“He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us,” the Declaration said. “He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.”

The Declaration lists the crown’s many offenses and concludes that “a Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

Our ancestors wanted nothing to do with kings or dictators. Our job as citizens is to keep faith with that, to hold democracy as the ideal and protect it from those who would tear down a constitutional government built with wisdom, blood and sweat over the last 248 years.

Lately, we’ve not done a great job.

In 2016, voters in key swing states helped elect a president who sneered at norms, played golf all the time and tried, four years later, to remain in power by overturning the election of his successor.

As a result of Donald Trump’s three nominations to the Supreme Court, we have a court that serves extreme conservative ideology.

And, on Monday, that court gave the president the rights of a monarch.

The conservative supermajority ruled that Trump — and all future presidents — are immune from prosecution for official actions while in the Oval Office.

George III certainly would have had a good laugh at that.

In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote: “In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law. … Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law.”

But the Supreme Court has spoken, and we are stuck with this. We no longer get to tell the whole wide world that, in the U.S., no man is above the law.

The four men from Maryland who signed the Declaration — Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone and Charles Carroll — would be appalled.

All Americans, even MAGA Republicans, should be alarmed that the president has been crowned with broad immunity.

I hear the voice of the late congressman from Baltimore, Elijah Cummings. “We are better than this,” he often said.

We could be. We could be “better than this,” despite the court’s depressing ruling.

We could still save our democracy.

We could reject anyone who vows to be a dictator, even for one day.

We can promise to never knowingly elect a remorseless felon to office.

We can return to our senses and demand honesty, civility and decency in every person who seeks our votes.

We can reject nationalism and reaffirm the U.S. as a beacon of hope in the world.

We can stop denigrating government and encourage our kids and grandkids to consider public service.

We can elect to Congress men and women willing to add more moderate-progressive justices to bring some balance and integrity to an expanded Supreme Court.

We can support taxing the very rich at a higher rate, leaving the wealthy with plenty of wealth while ensuring we have adequately funded schools, hospitals, mental health clinics and child-care services.

We can forbid the jailing of distressed people for sleeping in public spaces and, instead, put mighty energy and resources into housing the homeless.

We can demand big investments in education, medical science and our response to the growing climate crisis. We should stop ridiculing teachers and denigrating scientists.

I want a country that provides affordable dental care for all. Sen. Bernie Sanders is pushing legislation to expand Medicare, Medicaid and veterans benefits for comprehensive dental coverage to the 70 million Americans who have none; his bill would also increase the number of dentists and hygienists in rural areas that are underserved.

Here’s another suggestion: Americans who only watch Fox News could take a four-month break and read a mainstream newspaper every day between now and the November election.

Likewise, Americans who only watch MSNBC could take a four-month break from that 24-hour spillway of liberal confirmation and read only mainstream newspapers until Election Day.

There’s plenty we could do to strengthen our democracy.

Start by reading the Declaration of Independence. It will jog your memory. It will help you understand, if you don’t already, why the Supreme Court’s grant of immunity for the president is so appalling and why King George, ensconced on his dusty throne in hell, is having the last laugh on all of us.