Americans celebrate nation’s 250th anniversary amid division and doubt
Americans are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence with nationwide events, while deep political divisions continue to shape public life. The milestone reflects both national pride and growing uncertainty about the country's future
Washington: One of the stars of the American firmament once advised citizens of all stripes on how to express their love for their country. Mark Twain’s long-ago words capture how Americans are stepping out this week to wish their nation a happy milestone birthday.
“Our patriotism is medieval, outworn, obsolete,” Twain wrote in 1905. “The modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.”
In these deeply partisan times, those who think President Donald Trump deserves their support and those who do not are joining in the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Whether all the celebrations to come give the nation a breather from disunity or deepen it is an open question.
It’s a proud and loud moment, marked by division and doubt.
Love of country comes in different forms, of course. Some love it as it is. Some love what it could become and press on with their activism and protest in pursuit of history’s call for a “more perfect union.” Some love what it used to be and might become once more, the underpinning of MAGA.
But overall, belief in American exceptionalism has waned. More people in the US think there are better countries in the world than those who think the United States is the best. That is according to an April poll by The Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research, which found 44 per cent describing the United States as just one of the best.
This is not the America of, say, Teddy Roosevelt, whose presidential library Trump is visiting in North Dakota on Wednesday. Roosevelt reflected the brashness and ambition of a country surging in innovation, industry, influence, military strength and spirit.
In its place is a country where the president is his own brand of brash, but millions of the people he leads wonder if it is all coming apart.
Who’s in charge here?
For the 250th anniversary, the division starts at the top, with two organisations claiming to be leading the commemoration while largely ignoring each other.
A decade ago, Congress created the bipartisan America250 group and charged it by law with planning the country’s local, national and international events for the 250th anniversary. Trump followed that with an executive order making his Freedom 250 group “the” national organisation in charge.
Marquee events like the Fourth of July fireworks at the National Mall, the parade of tall ships in New York and the Great American State Fair along the National Mall are being organised by Trump’s Freedom 250. Musical stars who had been lined up for the splashy opening of the fair last week withdrew, concerned that Trump, a Republican, would make the festivities political and largely about himself.
He stepped forward to fill the void, declaring himself the “No. 1 attraction,” and delivered a speech there on June 24 on American glory and his achievements. He will headline the official Fourth of July events in the capital as well, for what he called “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all.”
Poems, art and a message in a bottle go underground for 250 years
America250, meanwhile, put together America’s Block Party, a series scheduled simultaneously around the country and anchored by a Fourth of July benefit concert in Los Angeles hosted by Queen Latifah, with Chris Stapleton and The Smashing Pumpkins among the performers.
By congressional mandate, America250 also buried a 400-kg time capsule in Philadelphia containing items from all states and branches of government, to be opened in 250 years.
The people of 2276 will then see a Major League Baseball line-up from 2026, poems from Alabama, Illinois, Kentucky and more, postcards from Colorado and Maine, beaded artwork from Montana, an Oklahoma belt buckle, a message in a vintage Coca-Cola bottle, a pocket Constitution signed by US Supreme Court justices, a George Washington Lord’s Prayer gold medal from Utah given out at the Wedding of the Rails event celebrating the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, and more.
In Philadelphia, where the founders signed the Declaration of Independence and gave birth to the nation, 250 people will form the outline of the Liberty Bell in a parade with 50 marching bands and Miss America delegates, formerly called contestants, representing every state.
Ain’t that America: Celebrations sprout from the grassroots, too
Though there are official events galore, it is not as if Americans, of all people, need the government to show them a good time.
In one of thousands of gatherings away from the national spotlight, Evans, Pennsylvania, will hear the Circle of Friends Choir perform patriotic songs a cappella in an event also featuring a patriotic trivia contest and a barbershop quartet.
In Pocatello, Idaho, drag queens organised a reading of patriotic picture books for young people, including the story of Katharine Lee Bates. Bates returned from the Colorado Rockies, where the spacious skies, purple mountain majesties and fruited plains inspired her to write the poem that became “America the Beautiful.”
Twain, the critic and satirist of the American government and imperialism, shared Bates’ love for his country’s natural beauty. He loved the nature of its people too, sometimes.
“We glorious Americans will occasionally astonish the God that created us,” he wrote.
But a century before Make America Great Again grabbed the political zeitgeist by the lapels, he was speaking of the good old days that had been lost.
“We are called the nation of inventors,” he said. “And we are. We could still claim that title and wear its loftiest honours if we had stopped with the first thing we ever invented, which was human liberty.”
