“It does not take a majority to prevail … but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” – Samuel Adams
Has a film ever captured the sentiment and joy of a holiday better than the 4th of July scene in the 1993 film The Sandlot? The Director, David Evans, transports the viewer to 1960s America, dusk casting a sunset over a closed-off cul-de-sac with neighbors BBQ’ing at picnic tables in the road, lit by citronella torches, and serenaded by Ray Charles crooning “America the Beautiful”. You can almost smell the charcoal grills and the sparklers in the air. The neighborhood boys rush to gather at the ballfield to play America’s pastime under the light of fireworks. Despite being born 20 years beyond this scene, it is every bit as sentimental, wholesome, and reminiscent of the best that America has to offer.
One of my favorite Independence Day celebrations came around 1987 or 88. We loaded up in the family car and drove from Charlottesville, Virginia, to Bar Harbor, Maine, and camped on the American History Trail along the way. We visited the Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, as well as the Freedom Trail in Boston. Our final destination was July 4th at the Bar Harbor Village Green, where, since 1898, a classic wind band has performed John Philip Sousa-style pieces on the bandstand overlooking the Harbor, leading up to fireworks over Frenchman Bay. It doesn’t get much more American than that.
Independence Day holds a special place in my heart that only Christmas can rival. As Christmas celebrates the beginning of eternal hope for all of mankind, Independence Day celebrates a sort of earthly resolution of millennia-long toiling for self-determination. They both share a sense of lightheartedness and goodwill toward those around us, but the audience and setting create distinct experiences. While the cold of December brings us indoors for more intimate settings, the heat of Summer invites us outdoors for larger, more agnostic and communal gatherings. No matter our religion, Independence Day invites us to gather and celebrate our freedom to practice.
This year, I’ve been especially excited to celebrate Independence Day, given the overlap with America’s Semiquincentennial, the World Cup, President Trump’s 80th birthday, and Flag Day. Despite the complaints from the peanut gallery, nobody can say that Donald Trump doesn’t like to party, and most importantly, that he doesn’t love his country. When President Trump took office again in January of 2025, he set out to clean up and beautify American spaces to showcase the best America has to offer to world travelers. He codified this policy in an Executive Order signed in August of 2025 titled Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again.
He brought in the National Guard to put down crime waves in Washington, D.C. He cleaned up monuments and gathering spaces. He renovated the White House Rose Garden to create a new outdoor space to host foreign dignitaries. He acquired private funding to add a $400 million ballroom to the East Wing of the White House. He is seeking to build a Roman-style Arch de Triomphe on the National Mall. He returned water to D.C. fountains that hadn’t run since the George W. Bush Administration. Most publicized, he cleaned and sealed the reflecting pool on the National Mall, which was run-down and full of garbage and algae.
The world has taken notice of America’s greatness, and it has truly been a pleasure to watch foreigners detail their social media travels in transit between World Cup Soccer venues around the nation. Many are astounded that the American experience looks nothing like the unending misery and grievance politics fed to them 24/7 across the pond. It evokes an incredible amount of national pride to see others recognize what most of us have known all along: America IS, in fact, Great!
A few years ago, I wrote about “The Unending Misery of Neo-Marxism.” The thesis presented was that a postmodern Marxist movement was spreading throughout America, seeking to tear down America’s institutions and national unity, and that its primary tool was grievance politics that balkanized America. This is the same movement that suppressed World Cup travelers’ expectations of America. Today, we are seeing the fruit of that movement. Pockets of indoctrinated Americans have adopted the sacraments of the Marxists, who have done everything from vandalizing the recently renovated reflecting pool and protesting in support of algae, to throwing their bodies on the gears of the machine in defiance of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. How do we come back from this?
A trait that I greatly admire about Donald Trump is his leadership style. I might define it as “fake it til’ you make it.” Despite his critics, President Trump is very much an optimist. In the words of George Bernard Shaw, he “dreams things that never were and says, why not?” When Trump bloviates about “the best… maybe ever” or “nobody has ever seen anything like this…” he is not speaking as if we have arrived. He is leading from the front. He is setting expectations. He is spreading brushfires of what could be, and that is how we come back from this.
Happy 250th Birthday, America!
Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash
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