RIP, United States of America: In Congress, July 4, 1776 – July 4, 2025.
Whatever this country is now, it is not the country it was before. It may use the same name, but it is not the same. No longer a democratic republic, but a dictatorship disguised as a democracy. No longer one nation, indivisible; rather 50-ish quasi-nation-states, divided amongst and against one another. No longer liberty and justice for all, but only for some, at the whims of the powerful few.
This July 4th is not a celebration of the birth of a nation, but a funeral for the death of a dream that was America – a dream that was real (if imperfect) for a while, but is now very much dead. Only its mangled corpse, draped in a flag, still remains, held up to continue the illusion that all is well and nothing is wrong.
This should not have happened, but it is doing more harm than good to pretend that it hasn’t.
This isn’t to say we have to accept the way things are – far from it; rather we must see this for the fight that it is: not just to flip some seats or overturn some laws, but to fundamentally undo what has been done, to re-declare our independence – except this time from an internal tyrant rather than a foreign one.
Also, today is perhaps a good day for everyone to re-read the full text of the Declaration of Independence (especially the list of grievances), and reflect on how those things that compelled the founding fathers to draft it in the first place sound all too familiar today.
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