It’s almost the Fourth of July, and I have no idea what to do with it this year.
I guess I could grill something? Or wave a sparkler and pretend things are normal? But it just feels bizarre, like clapping for a magic trick while the magician bleeds out backstage.
The red, white, and blue decorations are already up at H-E-B. Flags everywhere. Fireworks booths dotting the roadside like little pop-up tributes to freedom, I mean, preventable wildfires. But this year, all of it feels hollow.
I don’t know how to pretend we’re the “land of the free” right now. Not when Trump has steamrolled back into power like a villain in the sequel we begged the studio not to make. Not when ICE is arresting 3-year-olds, not when we just bombed Iran, and not when we’re about to kick almost 12 million people off Medicaid.
This doesn’t feel like a celebration of independence. It feels like we’re being held hostage by a nostalgia cult in red hats.
And yeah, I know some folks will say “but this country’s always been like this,” and to a degree, that’s true. America was born in violence, wrapped in hypocrisy, and our most esteemed leaders were writing flowery speeches about liberty while owning people like livestock. That’s our origin story — so I get the instinct to eye-roll any disillusionment as naive.
But that doesn’t make the state of our country any less terrifying. We’ve never been perfect, but this feels like backsliding with the gas pedal down.
The Supreme Court is tossing precedent in the shredder like confetti. State governments are playing “how low can we go” on reproductive rights. Books are being banned by people who haven’t read one since high school. And the president just took a break from (badly) running the country to hawk his new fragrance line. So miss me with all the “America is a shining city on a hill” nonsense. No shining city would have elected this con man.
I don’t want to celebrate America because I don’t even recognize it. Every day, I’m just bracing for more impact (and if a white dude in Texas feels this way… yeesh).
The thing about fascism is that it doesn’t arrive all at once. It creeps in — through Supreme Court decisions, through relentless attacks on the press, through rallies where people proudly wear t-shirts castigating their opponents in the vilest of terms. It shows up in flags that used to mean something different. In neighbors who stop making eye contact. In a national holiday that feels more like cosplay than celebration.
So yeah. This year, the fireworks will feel more like warning flares. Or a country at war with itself.
I’ll still show up for the cookout. I’ll still try to find some joy in the little things. But I’ll also be mourning the country we could’ve had.
Because this doesn’t feel like freedom. This feels like we’re being beaten into submission by an endless tidal wave of bad news, overloading (by design) those of us just trying to live our lives.
So what do we do? I don’t know. Maybe the most patriotic act right now is refusing to look away. To keep caring. To keep yelling, even if it feels pointless.
Or maybe, like me, you’ll just be sad and tired and vaguely terrified — but still here. Still hoping for something better.
Happy Fourth, I guess.
