American fireworks

Pardon the profanity

Note: Today’s polemic departs from my usual nature writing and is likely to offend some readers. Sorry, but some things can wait to come out, while others can’t, at least to my febrile mind. And this topic is important.

Also, the views below are mine alone. Please pardon the profanity. I know better. Kinda.

***

America’s 250th birthday is coming up very soon — and I can’t find anything to celebrate.

Anything at all.

Why not? Well, listed below are some of the terrible truths that I hold to be self-evident in 2026. I could add many more, trust me. This essay won’t even scratch the surface of what I really have to say.

But it starts with one simple question:

What the fuck has happened to my country?

This essay is a bit of a chore since I’m in no mood to grace the text with pretty pictures apart from the “distress” flag show below. Consider it the anguished outburst of a citizen in pain. But for those of you lacking the stamina needed to eat the whole enchilada at once, here’s my plaint in brief:

The United States today is no longer committed to progress — moral, economic, or otherwise. Quite the opposite. In fact, the US has become a bad actor in the world and a serious danger to its own citizens.

And why the hell would I celebrate that?

US flag in distress (Wikipedia).

Now, for some context.

I am old enough to remember the 1976 Bicentennial.

I was a kid on our nation’s 200th birthday. It was hot. We lit a few cheap fireworks in the dirt on our family farm. Then we watched television as tall ships and navies from around the world sailed through historic American ports like Boston and New York, joining in a majestic celebration.

America’s birthday then was a truly global event. It was inspiring, too, and not just for Americans. Dozens of countries eagerly paid public tribute to the United States.

Not that everything was fine in the USA. Of course it wasn’t. Miscegenation laws had only recently been overturned by the high court, and that didn’t erase baked-in racism overnight. The economy had yet to recover from oil shocks and a severe recession. The wounds of Vietnam still bled into the open. Gerald Ford had assumed the presidency after the resignation of Richard Nixon, a bitter, venal man that comedian George Carlin said looked like he hadn’t taken a shit in a month.

But there was a tangible sense of common purpose and reason to be hopeful. Americans then were committed to fixing things.

Importantly, Nixon resigned in disgrace largely because his own political party was fed up with him and his illegal shenanigans. The fact that most people agreed a man like Nixon had to go — even if they’d voted for him — seemed a really big part of being an American. He was shown to be a crook. No one was held to be above the law. Accordingly, Congress and the courts prudently limited presidential power.

Small wonder that, for all our evident flaws, folks in other countries looked up to the United States.

But that’s unthinkable today. Far more than five decades separates us from that moment in time. Our national psyche is different now. Things that were thinkable in 1976 — even if they hadn’t yet been realized in fact — are simply unthinkable today.

What’s changed?

Let’s start with our place in the world.

We were wrong in Vietnam. But when it comes to America’s conduct abroad today, we aren’t even wrong anymore — we’re malevolent.

Historically, there’s always been a gap between America’s avowed liberalism and our country’s behavior overseas. That disconnect killed innocent people and exposed the country to persistent charges of hypocrisy. But one could live with that, as much as they may dislike it. In 1976, the US abroad was like the parent who sometimes does things they tell you not to do; you see the shortcomings but love them anyway, because you know they have a good heart and mean well. They’re trying.

I mean, Gerald Ford was president, for chrissakes! A fundamentally decent man whose principal vice was clumsiness.

And when I grew up and traveled to places like Syria, where the food was great but the government broke the bones of its own people, it only reminded me of how truly American I had become. I was grateful.

None of that applies today.

America has stopped trying. And the old temptation to reduce US foreign policy to a tool for economic interests has morphed into something far more dangerous, dark, and total. There’s no sugarcoating it:

Today, America abroad is nothing more than a league of illiberal corporations backed by a compliant, taxpayer-funded military.

That’s it. Prove me wrong.

It is evident that today’s USA cares not a whit for democracy, human rights, international law, aid for poorer countries, press freedoms, or any liberal principles at all. I won’t provide every weblink, but each of the following observations is google-able.

Say you’re on a boat in waters where drug dealers ply their trade. We kill you. No trials or courts. We don’t like your country’s leadership? We send the military to capture your president and his wife (Venezuela) or murder it en masse (Iran). Fuck your rule of law. And hey, buddy — don’t you see the immense oil deposits these countries have?

What about the countries we “like?” Well, gratuitous verbal insults of traditional allies have become our thing. In material terms, whether it’s Denmark, Canada, Panama, or elsewhere, we openly talk about seizing whole chunks of their sovereign territory for our own. It’s not just geopolitics or resource envy at work here, either. It’s shameless profiteering by America’s ruling rich-but-never-rich-enough. Watch in awe as Ivanka cheerily claims she “discovered” Albania’s sole island by herself like some peroxide Ferdinand Magellan, and how she and hubby Jared, son of a convicted felon, should be allowed to build luxury resorts on this publicly-owned nature preserve.

Today, the US abroad assumes elite corruption and self-dealing. Of course, we’re simply mirror-imaging our own debased government. And forget that NATO allies like Albania came to our defense after 9-11. You say that Danish, German, Italian, Polish, and Czech soldiers died alongside ours in the deserts of Afghanistan? Well, then they’re losers. We owe them nothing. Fuck ‘em.

No wonder these same countries wouldn’t join our war with Iran when we asked. It’s not just because this war of choice is illegal, poorly-conceived, and utterly counterproductive. Many abroad no longer trust — or even like — us. Surveys suggest that even human rights-denying China has a better global reputation than the US.

How the hell does THAT happen?

It isn’t because the Chinese are geniuses at rebranding. They aren’t. Rather, it’s because we’ve shown the world what jerks we truly are. It starts with shit like calling Canada “the fifty-first state” and renaming the DoD the “Department of War,” as if we’re no longer interested merely in defending ourselves. Who wants to deal with that asshole?

And it never seems to end, does it? The US floods genocidal Israel with weapons while the whole world reels at the clearly deliberate mass killing of innocent Palestinians. (Protest that and you land in jail, like my students did.) Ukraine’s president, whose life is at risk daily, visits the White House and is humiliated on world television. His sin? Pleading for American help as his democratic nation resists Russia’s brutal invasion.

Only the cruelest dictators regularly enjoy our respect. North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il starved his people into eating leaves, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Sultan ordered the dismemberment of an American journalist, and Vladimir Putin is the architect of Europe’s bloodiest war since 1945. No worries. Each has pranced across the global stage with a beaming US president. No human rights record is too abominable.

And pssst! — we like to kill, too.

“When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” is one way to describe cognitive limitations. Yes, today’s United States is certainly cognitively limited. As my brother sums it up,

“Postwar America is always prewar America.”

He’s right, and you know it.

That’s because force is our coin of choice. Remember when, in 2017, the US dropped the largest conventional weapon in our arsenal — the 22,000-pound “Mother of All Bombs” — on an Afghan valley holding Islamic State fighters. It was a military first; nobody had ordered the bomb dropped before. Reportedly, the cloud was visible for twenty miles. Did it do anything to shorten the war? Not at all. Who cares? Kinda cool.

What else can be expected from a country where people slap “Punisher” skull and “AR-15 family” lifestyle stickers on their automobiles?

Officially, though, our wars are now manifestations of God’s providence. So even when America kills over 100 Iranian schoolgirls in one blow, we express zero remorse. It’s like we were doing them a favor.

And when force fails and the US decides to negotiate, do we send in diplomatic experts who’ve studied history and culture and immersed themselves in foreign languages? Nope. The American president sends his relatives and golfing buds (who immediately start crafting lucrative business deals). In other words, he sends stupid.

America abroad is stupid.

***

The United States is harming the world. But the domestic scene is even worse.

American democracy is dying. It’s now ranked twenty-eighth in the world and the trajectory certainly isn’t upwards. I know serious people who wonder aloud if we’re even going to see another election. And for the most part, it’s the government we chose that’s killing our democratic institutions. How’s that for irony?

Our government actively sows popular mistrust in elections without any evidence. Think of that. That fact, alone, should beggar belief.

But it doesn’t stop there. It also attacks the press, rendering it increasingly unfree. Unflattering jokes can get a comedian fired by a parent corporation seeking favors from the government. DHS agents invade homes to arrest legal immigrants and US citizens without warrants and without evidence that any law has been violated. Our ruling party has initiated a nationwide gerrymandering campaign that now spins out of control. It wants to disenfranchise voters across the country, especially people of color. Women and minorities are barred from senior military leadership without a stated cause. Fuck Blacks and women. The triumphs of the Civil Rights era evaporate before our eyes.

Science and the humanities — the leading agents in America’s Cold War victory — are routinely disparaged or considered unAmerican. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) serves as the president’s ridiculously over-funded praetorian guard. Despite executing two American citizens, ICE received a budget exceeding the Marine Corps’ and remains beyond effective supervision. A Roman emperor would tip his crown.

On that note, from all this institutional wreckage, we see a monarchy clearly rising. Ours is the first president (henceforth Would-Be King, or WBK) who doesn’t even bother with the pretense of serving citizens who didn’t vote for him. WBK’s government won’t fund social programs, but compels taxpayers to pay for the trappings of a tawdry Versailles: a billion-dollar White House ballroom and 24-carat Oval Office. It combs the public treasury for money to reward his violent supporters of January 6th. And, as WBK’s people gut agencies like the National Park Service, they imprint his face on each NPS annual pass, on huge banners hanging from federal buildings, and more.

If this was just a cult of personality, that would be one thing. But WBK is increasingly beyond the reach of the law. The genie is escaping the bottle.

WBK has legal immunity from prosecution for his presidential actions, according to his Supreme Court. A decade after falsely promising to show his tax returns, he, his family, and businesses enjoy immunity from the IRS, too — surely, the first person in American history with such undemocratic privileges. WBK’s corrupting hands go virtually unchecked. Only two years removed from 34 felony convictions, the American president has become divine, the untouchable god-king that his own AI-generated memes portray him to be.

And every such meme delivers a clear message to each of us: Fuck YOU!

If all that still isn’t enough to chill your Fourth of July, consider the economy. You don’t need a lot of coffee to see that 19th century Social Darwinism is back with a vengeance. For weeks last year, the world’s richest man retooled the federal government however he fancied. He larked about like a spoiled child in a sandbox, pulling wings off federal agency houseflies, until he got bored. No one had voted for him. But he’d spent $270 million-plus on WBK’s electoral campaign. That was enough to toss him the keys to the federal government.

Billionaires rule this country. So it’s no surprise that American inequality in income and wealth persistently leads the industrialized world. That’s a fact both accepted and praised by the uber-rich, and even many of the not-rich.

In today’s America, inequality is patriotic.

***

And what of the future?

The sentient world sees the threat of climate change and is busy adopting alternative energies. Completely on brand, the US heads the other way fast, and excoriates those who do otherwise.

That’s because America today is at war with nature itself. There’s no other way to put it. Clean air and water? Alternative energy? Public lands spared from private exploitation? Fuck. Them. All.

Here, climate change is a “hoax,” a “scam,” and a “con job.” We’re actively dismantling the already inadequate infrastructure needed to fight it.

So the rest of the world trundles on without us. While the US buries its head, China is happy to grab the technological lead. Europe’s chief contributor to greenhouse gases, Germany, is targeting climate neutrality by 2045. 54% of its electricity now comes from renewables, up from 6% in 2000. Today, solar power is the leading source of electricity even in Pakistan, a poor country where child labor is still a problem. And on and on.

The United States casually dismisses the welfare and happiness of its future generations. Fuck ‘em. America chooses oblivion.

***

This screed doesn’t cover two percent of what’s really going on. And it would be misleading to center my ire on Donald Trump, the current president.

That’s because the presidents we elect reveal who we are at the time. Trump is dangerous and unstable. He succinctly embodies the contemporary American ethos, which is also dangerous and unstable. Think of how JFK, Ronald Reagan, and Barack Obama reflected the values of the country that elected them.

In 1976, the year of America’s Bicentennial, we elected Jimmy Carter — the kindest, most selfless president in our modern history. The man who never started a war and installed solar panels on the White House.

You get my point? Trump is America today.

***

So, as a taxpaying citizen, what am I compelled to do? I am compelled to support genocide, fossil fuel subsidies, feral (that’s no typo) agencies that turn on their own people, and massive public aid to the billionaire — now trillionaire — class.

But am I also bound to act proud on July 4th? To mindlessly pretend I live in the greatest country in the world?

No, I am not. At least not yet. When, in the course of human events it becomes necessary to do so, the refusal to celebrate may be the most “old school” American action still available to me.

And all this surrounding nihilism inspires two more responses that seem far more appropriate than lighting fireworks — at least to my mind.

First, I’m looking forward to the fall.

Lord, let US global influence collapse like tired puppy. Let us become a “normal” country before we do even more damage — a middle power no longer able to dictate its will over entire hemispheres. Think Canada, Australia, or South Korea. Forget Rome.

Isn’t that cheering on American decline? Yes it is. And on July 4th, no less. When asked “Do you support your country?” our first question should always be: “Well, tell me what it’s up to, and I’ll give you my answer.”

That’s because America ain’t my kid, folks. Pride in one’s country should always be conditional; ask the Germans, the Japanese, and your immigrant forebears who fled life in unbearable places.

Fact is, we’re being hubristic dirtbags, so it’s time for a reckoning; any Greek would tell you that.

Second, flood the zone with abject ridicule.

Thoreau wrote that citizens should refuse to pay taxes and risk going to jail rather than uphold an unjust government. Kudos to Henry David, but the neck-bearded philosopher didn’t have kids and a mortgage.

Rather, the best available strategy for those seeking to confront the powerful and indecent may well be fiery ridicule.

I’ve long taken to heart novelist Amos Oz’s observation that the mark of a fanatic is his missing sense of humor. So this Fourth of July, let’s make open fun of our country, its leaders, and its government. (I know it’s not “our” country — that’s the problem — but you get the point.) Mock their most fervent supporters, too. Puncture their paper-thin skins with crude satire and rude gestures. They simply can’t handle it. That’s why they hate comedians.

Sure, it won’t change their minds — they’re fanatics. But it might save yours.

And nothing shatters the illusion of immunity and inevitability like honest public ridicule, the louder the better. Follow Bugs Bunny and take a left turn at Albuquerque. Mock our leaders’ tacky Bible-hawking and ridiculous Holy Wars. Tell them their gender-affirming makeup schemes fool no one. Roast their comedic inability to pronounce country names, and so much more. Make the costs of ruling higher than the benefits of power and corruption.

Let the humanities — theater, art, music, letters, television, Tiktok, Substack — rise up and strike another historic blow for freedom.

Today’s America isn’t my America. It isn’t our America, either.

On this July 4th, tell their America:

“Fuck you! Fuck you very much!”

And wear a very silly hat.