Semiquincentennial

As of yesterday, the United States of America, as declared in the Declaration of Independence, is 250 years old. It has been some kind of a ride - what is there to say at this juncture? We have made it this far, we might stick around a while - though what we will be, if we last, is up for debate.

It is strange how much of an afterthought this anniversary is. I remember 1976 - you were constantly reminded that this was the bicentennial. You were reminded for a year or so coming up to it. There were all kinds of knick knacks to commemorate it, there were movies made, from 1776 to Nashville, movies that in some way pointed to the date. This time around, is there anything like that? There's a new movie about George Washington, apparently, but that's about the French and India War, so does that really count? I went to the 4th of July parade yesterday and saw - did I see anything about the 250th anniversary? There might have been a couple comments from the announcers, maybe someone had a banner or something on some of the floats - I don't remember. My brother had his 250th anniversary hat he picked up at Fort Ticonderoga last year - does that count? 

It's been no big deal. Is that Donald Trump's fault? Obviously, yes - he has poisoned the well of the country, poisoned any celebrations of this date. I can't say he has poisoned the idea of patriotism - he has inspired a lot of patriotism for what the country really is, and should be - but he's made overt, unqualified celebration of the country, especially in abstract, symbolic terms, much more difficult. And he has done such a job of pissing on the symbols of the country, from his destruction of part of the White House to dirtying up the reflecting pool to his stupid MMA fight a couple weeks ago to his comically inept "state fair" business, that it's hard to find much you can hang on to.

There is, in fact, plenty to hang on to. They just aren't the flag waving kinds of things - their ideas, the actual words of the Constitution and Declaration, it's history and so on. There are moments of triumph - Mamdani's election in New York, and what has come from that. Or the World Cup, which whatever you can say against it (and there are always a million things to hate about FIFA, and the government has behaved disgracefully at many turns - ask the Irani team, particularly), has shown the country at its best. The people who made it here have had fun. They've gotten on well with actual Americans, and with each other, more than you would expect from a soccer tournament. 

It helps of course that almost every team in the cup can draw on a massive contingent of Americans descended from that country. I don't live in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville anymore, but it's not far removed. Watching Cape Verde, I couldn't help think, in Massachusetts that's not far from a home team - I had friends in New Bedford, and that place was full of Cape Verdeans, including a couple of those friends. Fall River, Gloucester, the other sea going towns in Southern Mass, Rhode Island and Connecticut, all heavily Cape Verdean. Where I lived, Cambridge had massive Brazilian communities, restaurants and stores up and down Cambridge street; Somerville too, along with a notable Portuguese community. As well as large Hispanic communities all through the Boston area; a significant number of Haitians - and so on.

Which is, of course, the best thing you can say about the USA. We're made up of everyone. (So's Canada, for that matter - whose heritage I'm happy to claim as well.) If you want the best symbol of the United States, it probably is the Statue of Liberty. That is who we are. We came from somewhere else, and we became Americans. Not that the people already here were ready to accept it of course - but the weight of history will tell. 

It is true that we have 3 or 4 supreme court justices who are willing to throw out one do the clearest sentences in the constitution - "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside." - to negate this unambiguous positive. But they are fools, evil, cruel, corrupt people, who can't be allowed to continue unchecked forever. And they are wrong about the country - and it seems likely that whatever harm they do, the country will wash them away, sooner or later. And that they can't really break what the country is - which is a country of immigrants who find ways who live together, when they are given the chance.

There's some optimism for you. I do think, of course, that 1776 is not really the date we should be celebrating. Maybe July 9, 1868, the date of the ratification of the 14th amendment, is a better date - that is when the Constitution ceased to be a contract with hell and became what the Declaration of Independence implied and the Constitution was supposed to be - a document devoted to freedom and democracy. While we are at it, we should change the national anthem from the Star Spangled Banner to the much more deriving Battle Hymn of the Republic - that's something worth celebrating!

That's enough of that. But it is a reminder that Donald Trump and his goblins do not define what this country is, they don't know what it is, and they don't care. I can't sugar coat the beginnings of the country - the fact that it was founded by white surpemecists who would be horrified by what it is now. But we should also not ignore that the country in turn was remade, by very large numbers of immigrants (Irish and Germans especially) in the Civil War; and then literally built, railroads and th rest, afterwards, by more immigrants, Irish and Chinese and all the rest; that we were remade, for the better, int he late 19th early 20th century by more immigrants from almost everywhere. We can't forget or pretend not the care how much of the country's power wand wealth was built on slave labor. We shouldn't pretend for some reason that the last 50 or 60 years have been the first really sustained stretch where we made a serious effort to live up to the ideals of the Declaration, all men created equal and such. We should celebrate what's good and fight against all efforts to undo those good things. 

So I guess, yeah - we have done a few things right, to last 250 years.