I like holiday parties as much as the next guy—so long as the next guy is Howard Hughes circa 1975. As such, I was unlikely to celebrate this Fourth of July with anything approaching the requisite vim or vigor.
The fireworks freak out our dogs, I don’t eat anything with nitrites, and even before COVID transformed me into a quasi-translucent proto-Gollum, I wasn’t much for the kinds of soirees where people show up at your house just because you asked them to. And thanks to the duly prescribed laws and regulations of the state of Oregon, which I’ve called home for the past seven years, cannabis has made me lazy and sapped my will to live … within 10 miles of another human being.
But hey, that’s just me. Cavorting through elysian fields of sticky-icky bud in lieu of grinding against shirtless louts in Dave Matthews Band mosh pits is my choice and prerogative—and that’s what America is all about. Or, at least, what it used to be about.
I have to admit, celebrating the Fourth of July this year feels a bit like breaking a ceremonial bottle of champagne against the half of the Titanic that hasn’t sunk yet. The Supreme Court—which believes the states can’t regulate gun ownership, must regulate women's bodies, and will have to act on their own if we’re to do anything about climate change—has begun to sap my enthusiasm for our grand 246-year-old experiment. The fact that five current SCOTUS justices were nominated by Republican presidents who originally lost the popular vote—and were confirmed by a grotesquely undemocratic Senate that gives Wyoming’s 580,000 residents the same representation as California’s 39 million residents—isn’t helping my mood any. Nor is the very real possibility that SCOTUS may decide partisan legislatures in heavily gerrymandered states have more right to choose your president than you do.
For some reason, the thought of permanent white Christian minority rule isn’t thrilling me this July 4. I used to think the U.S. was basically Canada with worse health care and marginally less Alan Thicke, but while we’re finding hell portals into the dark past, Canada continues to protect its citizens’ hard-won individual rights.
But hey, I’m an American—for better or worse. And until the thousand-year Trumpian Reich hangs me for sedition, I’ll stay and fight. It’s what patriots do. But not on July 4. On July 4, patriots get baked out of their gourds while yearning for better days—days that, ultimately, hinge on what we do today.
So celebrate in the manner in which you’ve become accustomed, and then sober up and come out swinging. And maybe—just maybe—we’ll one day be just as great as our neighbors to the north.
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