The American founding narrative, long a source of national identity, has collapsed under the weight of wealth inequality, civil rights reversals, and unpopular wars. According to historian Nikhil Pal Singh, the Fourth of July celebrations now reveal a fractured nation where the meaning of independence is fiercely contested.
The Broken Narrative
Writing during World War I, iconoclast Randolph Bourne described the American revolutionary inheritance as a squalid marriage between the town capitalist and plantation patriarch. Today, under Donald Trump's administration, Singh argues that this judgment is affirmed. The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence arrives amid market frenzy, militarism, and nativist passions, echoing Bourne's era of social fracture and moral failure.
Barack Obama's 2008 victory speech framed his election as narrowing the gap between democratic ideals and flawed reality: "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, tonight is your answer." But recent years have seen growing detractors from this consensus history, notably the New York Times's 1619 Project, which argued that the Revolutionary War was primarily motivated to protect slavery.
Twin Pillars: Emancipation and Expansion
Singh emphasizes that land hunger and westward expansion were major revolutionary impulses, often overlooked. Emancipation and expansion are twin pillars of the American narrative, bound to slavery, freedom, and global reach. However, wealth inequality, civil rights reversals, violent policing, and unpopular wars have undermined this virtuous dialectic.
Frederick Douglass's 1852 question, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" remains resonant. The Dred Scott decision in 1857 denied citizenship to African descendants, requiring a bloody civil war to achieve a partial answer. It took another century for Black Americans to gain substantive rights, with ambivalence persisting today.
Historical Celebrations and Evasion
Fourth of July celebrations have historically evaded scrutiny. The 1876 centennial barely mentioned slavery, focusing on industrial might and expansion. The 1893 Chicago World's Fair, held on July 4, featured Frederick Jackson Turner's "frontier thesis," which treated slavery as an "incident" secondary to geographic expansion.
World War II prompted historical reconsideration. Arthur Schlesinger's 1945 book The Age of Jackson framed Jackson as a populist hero, overlooking his support for slavery and Indian removal. Ho Chi Minh invoked the Declaration of Independence in 1945 to declare Vietnamese independence, but his appeals to the US were met with silence.
The 1976 bicentennial reverted to plantation nostalgia and corporate kitsch. A "freedom train" sponsored by Prudential, Pepsi, and General Motors toured the country. In Philadelphia, a counter-celebration led by Black, Latino, and Native American organizers demanded a "bicentennial without colonies."
Trump's Resurgent Expansionism
Donald Trump's second term has revived frontier-expansionist myths. On day one, he canceled birthright citizenship via executive order, followed by militarized immigration policing and threats to annex Canada and Greenland. Singh notes that these actions resurrect repudiated precedents, such as the Insular cases and Korematsu v. United States.
Trump's gambits rest on unsound legal reasoning but reassert expansionism over the "woke" story of unfinished emancipation. Singh observes that Jefferson's Declaration was evasive on slavery but decisive about "merciless Indian savages." Paul Berman once mused, "If you reject the Indian wars, you reject America."
King's Alternative and the Future
Martin Luther King Jr. offered a democratic alternative, arguing that freedom as self-determination was not exclusive to Americans. He noted that American universalism was purchased "at bargain rates" at others' expense. The Black freedom struggle revealed "systemic rather than superficial flaws."
In Trump's second term, the expansionist pole has returned untethered from emancipation. The US is no longer "the cause of all mankind" but its scourge, according to Singh. Reanimating stalled racial progress will not absolve the empire. The revolutionary inheritance awaits its next reinvention.
