Well, I’m home from eating hot dogs and hamburgers, drinking beers, and shooting off fireworks to celebrate America’s 250th birthday. No, I didn’t watch any of Trump’s speeches or freak show. No, I didn’t watch Mamdani’s speech either, because he’s not our leader. I divorced myself from real world politics today, and well, it was nice.

A lot of folks have suggested that Trump, and the issues facing our nation, made this July 4th less worth celebrating than past ones. Not surprisingly, I don’t agree. Part of celebrating America is celebrating the ideals of it, not necessarily the day-to-day reality of it. I also happen to think that a nation is a lot more than the sum of it’s government and laws. It’s worth noting that our Declaration of Independence was written years before our first real legal document, the Constitution, and is far more of an idealist document. It is a document that celebrates freedom, independence, and the idea of a country where all people are free to live as they want. It’s a beautiful document. It is a beautiful idea. And yes, we are a beautiful country.

The United States has a lot of failings. Slavery. The Trail of Tears. Japanese Internment Camps. Jim Crow. Segregation. The Immigration Act of 1924. The Iraq War. The Patriot Act. The War on Drugs. The way we treated Vietnam veterans when they came home from the war. I would argue January 6th and the current actions of ICE are not good moments. Our failings are pretty bi-partisan and very real. I suppose if you’re an absolutist, you could cancel us as a nation. Lord knows we’ve done it to plenty of people who we shouldn’t have.

We’re also the greatest country on Earth. There is a reason my friends in foreign countries *want* to come here. There’s a reason millions of people try to immigrate here illegally, or overstay visas, or try to float from Cuba, or even seek to marry to get here. It’s better here than it is there. Sure, it’s not *equally* better for all people, we don’t all have the same opportunities, and that’s a problem we should be trying to fix every day. No, I’m sorry though, there’s not really somewhere else I’d rather be. And you know, the rest of the world wants us at our best. The French maintain a cemetery at Normandy because brave Americans of all stripes were willing to sacrifice their lives for their freedom, as they did for us during the Revolution. We’re the country that lead the 20th century in innovation. We landed on the Moon. We won the World Wars. We built the interstate highway system. We built suburbia. We were a leader in the industrial revolution. Nations across the globe quote our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution in their own founding documents. Millions come see our musicians, actresses, and athletes when they come to their countries. Yes, sure, we did some shitty stuff in history that we should reckon with and avoid doing again. We’ve also done the greatest shit in world history. Like individual people, we should hang our head in shame because of our worst moments. Screw that, it’s no way to live. Billions live in freedom around the globe today, either directly because of what we did, or in part because of the inspiration of our own revolution. We fought a whole war with Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, and he and his nation directly quoted Thomas Jefferson in the opening of their very own Declaration of Independence. We’re not perfect, we’re not even the only great nation in this world, but dammit be proud, we’re the best.

So yeah, I celebrated like a red blooded American today. The idea of this country, the great things we do, matters a lot more to me than the failings. I hope to hell all of you celebrated too. God bless America.