I Will Not Celebrate Today

 I Will Not Celebrate Today

July 4, 2026

I, of course, see all kinds of things online about today being the 250th anniversary of the birth of the United States of America. Today it is, indeed, 250 years since the so-called founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. I don't quite see how that event got to be considered the founding of the nation. It was a step toward independence, but it took five years of war to establish independence. Yet, of course, there's no point in making that argument. July 4 marking the founding of the nation is part of our national myth, and that's not going to change.

Today is supposed to be a big deal, but I will not celebrate today. Our national myth says that we are "the land of the free," and that claim is and always has been nothing but a lie. When Thomas Jefferson wrote "all men are created equal," he owned enslaved human beings. He meant only that landed white men are created equal. He did not say, he did not mean, and he did not believe that all people are created equal. When we read "all people" rather than "all men" into Jefferson's words, we make him say something he just didn't say, mean, or believe.

Nonetheless, the equality of all people became a foundational part of our idolatrous national myth. That claim is mythic in the technical sense, but it is not and never has been part of our national reality. It wasn't part of our reality in 1776, and it is not part of our reality today. Yes, we have made some not insignificant progress toward making it part of our reality, but we still have a very long way to go before it truly reflects who we are as a nation. There are all sorts of statistics one can cite to prove that point; but, for now, just consider this. Donald Trump said there were "fine" people among a mob of violent, anti-Jewish thugs. He told armed militias to "stand back and stand by," clearly indicating his willingness to use them extralegally and violently to achieve his ends. And we made him president not once but twice. No country that truly believed that all people are created equal would ever elect him to anything once much less elect him president twice. Land of the free? In myth yes, in reality, no. Today and throughout our history we are and have been free only for some. We parrot back Jefferson's words "and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But we have allowed that noble claim to be reality only for some Americans, never for all of them, and certainly not for people here who are not technically Americans but are noncitizen immigrants whether here "legally" or not.

So no, today I will not be a hypocrite. I will not celebrate a myth that is not and never has been a reality. I don't expect this country ever to stop celebrating July 4 as the nation's birthday. After all, nations tend to have some sort of national day on which they celebrate themselves. For Canada, it's July 1. For France it is July 14. For the Soviet Union it was November 7. For us it's always been July 4, and it will stay July 4. Which doesn't mean that our celebration is anything other than either self-delusion or hypocrisy. Our reality is not and never has been what we have always claimed that it is. So, celebrate if you want. I will not join you.