Happy Birthday 'Merica

The 250th American birthday is a bust. Trump, the man who bankrupts casinos, unsurprisingly failed to engage our abundant patriotism for any celebration and his economics are even killing off the hometown fireworks display. I was ten for the Bicentennial—now that was a show. Could not swing your Declaration of Independence without hitting something with that Bicentennial logo—just look at eBay today and see how much was out there. But, here we are one-quarter of the way to 1,000 years and our celebration is the equivalent of bad gas station sparklers.

I am not that patriotic. Never been a fireworks fan—especially with the tinnitus I developed after my friend David threw a firecracker towards me in 9th grade. Singing the national anthem to start ball games is ridiculous—while sacred today, the practice began life as public relations for World War I and solidified during World War II. Overall, we, as a nation, take patriotism to the point of fetish—Christian nationalists are just the most obvious lifestyle members. While I am not disappointed about missing a good Independence Day show, I am very sad and angry about not having a show to complain about. How we, as a nation, allowed all that is worst about us to bestow another term on the grossly incompetent and morally challenged Trump simply because Kamala Harris was a woman. Harris had a difficult and abbreviated campaign, but consider Hillary ignored Wisconsin while Kamala practically moved there and the result was the same.

You may cry "oversimplified" but I disagree. Some say we got Trump because people over-reacted to having elected Obama. However, if Joe Biden had run in 2016 instead of Hillary, what do you think would have happened—now be honest. Our patriotic fetishes are baked into what we, men and women, see as Presidential. We see him as a lone warrior—the person who will struggle against the world for us. Think about World War II into the Cold War. Strong leaders contending against world-threatening forces. In the atomic age with nuclear destruction on the table, we designed a government that could confer vast power on the president because events could hit the fan at a moment's notice. This strong presidential role, as with always singing the national anthem (unofficial until 1931) at ball games, haunts us, but does not have to.

Now we have always had presidents who indulged in militarily muscular policy, but what we expect and defer is different now than, say, back when Teddy Roosevelt was president. Or Polk—he wanted Texas, but at least Congress declared war on Mexico. Today, Trump spends north of 100 billion dollars losing to Iran while driving the world economy into a ditch with Congress doing nothing and a scarce few protesting in the streets. That is how much we have given up to the Office of President. And the fanboys on the Supreme Court—all of the men once worked in presidential administrations—have turned over even more keys this court session.

So we have a "tough" old white guy businessman as President today, who on paper looks like someone capable of checking those manly boxes voters look for in a president fighting the world. Turns out, in spite of Stephen Miller's resemblance to Joseph Goebbels, Trump cannot even throw a party, much less stand up to the world and run a country. The world via its soccer fans is awed by our ranch dressing, Buc-ee's and genuine random acts of kindness—while our federal government is mired in hate, incompetence and greed. Cities like Dallas, Kansas City and Miami show visitors our best, while Trump cannot even clean the pool.

Pursue Happiness

My hope this year is for us to reflect on how underwhelming the 250th Independence Day is. When the framers called out the right to pursue happiness, would Trump be anywhere near their vision? These founders were flawed, often too capitalist when not being slave-holders. A serious tension in our political culture is that genuine revolutionaries like Thomas Paine had to make common cause with lesser leaders to have a chance to pursue that happiness and accommodations made over the centuries made Donald Trump a reality.

So look at this greedy, grasping laughingstock we have as president and realize we, as a nation, did this. Sure, you may never have voted for Trump, but none of us can say we did our utmost for the decades between Reagan and 2024 to keep a Trump from ever happening in the first place. This year must be more than a 250th anniversary of faded past glory. We must take this on as the first year towards disenthralling ourselves from an imperial president and building a real government for the people that will endure.