We long for that perfect Fourth of July. Perhaps there was some festival, some county fair, some town picnic you went to as a kid, and you can still remember the crispness of the coating on the corn dog or the smell of the kettle corn.
The enthusiasm of the band, banging out some Sousa with gusto or even some toe-tapping rock ‘n’ roll, the dusk dropping slowly, sky melting into fireworks which, as a kid, were bright and loud and wondrous. If you were born before 1970, you might even wax nostalgic for the tall ships that glided with so much grandeur and grace into New York Harbor. Even just 11 years ago, the Capital Fourth was mobbed with people of these diverse United States, welcomed to eat the overpriced snow cones in humid Washington and spread out on the National Mall to listen to cannons go off in the “1812 Overture” and whisper to each other, “that’s not about the War of 1812, y’know.”
Oh, the nostalgia of the corn dogs and our tall ships.
It doesn’t feel terribly celebratory right now, as divisive as things are, with our 250th birthday hijacked in D.C. to score political points and to suck up taxpayer money to line someone else’s pocket. The Freedom250 festival in Washington has been a giant bust, but even if people had showed up, the fenced-off, algae-filled Lincoln pool and constant National Guard patrols would probably have turned them away. I keep thinking it’s like a teenager planning a 16th birthday bash (or quincenera or high school graduation, whatever) for years, only to find mom married a skeezy stepdad who gives out creepy looks and crashes the party drunk and ruins everything, man! We only had one shot at this party, and it’s been screwed up.
But the idea of a glorious Fourth has often been more imaginary than actual. What we’ve been also really good at is glorious protest. For 250 years, people have used the day to point out that the promise of liberty has not always been delivered. In that, 2026 fits right in, and you may find yourself feeling a little proud, by the end of this, to carry on a tradition of disagreeing with policy. It’s flippin’ patriotic!
Continue reading “Patriotism Disagreeable”