The 250-Year Experience
The 4th of July is more than a celebration. It is a reaffirmation of what it means to be a proud American.
Dear 4th of July:
I consider myself a patriotic person. I love my country, am proud of our historic 250th anniversary, and cherish the freedoms and liberties that come with our collective experiment in democracy. But I’m still not sure that defines “patriot” effectively nor do I think it encompasses what it means to celebrate this great holiday. It’s easy to wave the flag, explode some fireworks, and enjoy a backyard barbecue. That is the joyful part of celebrating this day and part of what I love about the 4th. But a deeper exploration is necessary to understand and appreciate the American experiment and the current challenges we are facing.
Optimism: Our positive outlook and a belief in the possibilities of the future are characteristics that help us get through to the other side of many problems. This optimism breeds a sense of innovation, creativity, openness, and yearning that drives us to newer and generally better solutions. Our willingness to develop and embrace new ideas has driven an economic and social engine that provides opportunity for those willing to take risks and strive for a better life. I am an eternally optimistic person, but one of the defining challenges of our current circumstances is maintaining that positive outlook because it is so essential to solving problems and moving our democracy forward.
Learning: Part of being an American is acknowledging and accepting both the good and the bad in our history. The concept of American Exceptionalism is mistakenly interpreted to mean that everything we do is “right” and “good,” and therefore we are a great nation. Quite to the contrary, I think we are a remarkable success as a nation precisely because we learn from our mistakes, we correct them as best we can, and we move forward with a better approach. Sometimes this happens quickly (lest we forget our original experiment with an American Confederacy) but often it takes decades and even centuries to reckon with our challenges. The fight to end slavery and the subsequent civil rights movement is a prime example of lessons that are still being learned. The same can be said with the struggle for equal rights for women. The power of this “learning gene” is that it never stops working – and our challenge is to maintain that continual struggle to improve amid our current turbulent environment.
Perseverance: The American experiment has never been easy. Certainly, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Great Depression, the World Wars, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Vietnam War are all examples of the important challenges we have faced. And it is our ability to overcome those challenges – to persevere in the face of difficult odds and great divisions – that defines who we are as Americans. We are now in the middle of another turbulent period. A soul-searching reckoning with who we are and what we stand for that will establish the basis for the next wave of our country. Indeed, we must overcome our differences to find that path forward.
Sacrifice: I love reading historian David McCullough’s work – I think he’s our greatest American historical writer – and his works on the Revolutionary War are…revolutionary. John Adams is a great chronicle of the entire period seen through the eyes and letters of the Adams family. 1776 explores the first year of the war in more detail. While this period is often glamorized, there was nothing easy or glamorous about forming our country. In both books, the sacrifices made by our founding fathers as well as everyday citizens are remarkable. The populace was sharply divided into loyalists and patriots, the hardships of everyday life were real, and the willingness to give up family and work to govern and then fight stand out in sharp relief. Making those sacrifices required incredible courage from our leaders and the everyday man, woman, and child. Sacrifice was the order of the day and will be the order of the day for us going forward.
Immigrant: Part of the foundation of the American experience is that we are fundamentally an immigrant nation. With great respect for our native citizens, the vast majority of Americans are descendants of people from other parts of the world – in fact, almost every part of the world. This constant influx of talent, ideas, skills, and cultures enriches what it means to be American and provides momentum to the optimism and new ideas that I’ve already mentioned. The influx of new people has never been smooth or easy, and our history is rife with discrimination and hatred toward “others” who join our country. And yet, overtime, we manage to include the influx and find great power in what it brings in human talent and energy. The US Men’s World Cup soccer/futbol team is a great example of this effect. The current fight over immigration is just another example of this reflexive action to “keep others out” because what we have “is mine.” Sadly, we keep having to learn the lesson that our own diversity and other’s desire to join our experiment are strengths not weaknesses.
Each year, my family celebrates the 4th of July on Whidbey Island in Washington State. We gather together, play sports, walk the beach, enjoy a barbecue, and sit by a bonfire with fireworks exploding around us. In many ways it is iconic and idyllic – part of our family history and culture. This year we will miss that tradition as all of us are celebrating weddings and other events on the 4th, in my case in the United Kingdom. While that makes me a little sad, it has served to remind me how important it is to understand deeply what it means to be an American. It has forced me to think about the concept we call “the American Dream” and recognize that it is not all sweetness and roses.
Being a patriotic American is rightly a struggle. It requires courage and sacrifice, perseverance and learning, acceptance of differences, a desire to move forward, and a willingness to rejoice in the complexity of our country. Our current national challenge reflects a struggle to accept these basic ideas. The Make America Great Again, or so-called MAGA, movement is wildly off target in my view. It maintains that there is some idyllic past that we need to return to so that we can all be “better.” For those who are true believers, I will respectfully say that this is misguided because it ignores the very things that have made our country so strong all along. Nostalgia is an understandable, human feeling, but it rarely survives in the face of the push for progress.
And then there are those who cynically use MAGA for their own personal gain, including the President and many of our national leaders. I find their words and actions remarkably un-American and contrary to the very essence of what defines our country. As patriots, we must resist this effort in every way we can. We must organize, we must protest, we must struggle for what we know is right.
We must do all this just as our country’s founders did so valiantly 250 years ago today.
Wishing you a happy 4th of July,
Respectfully,
Robbie