Francine Prose, former president of the PEN American Center, writes that one reason to celebrate America's 250th birthday on the Fourth of July is the unusual longevity of its democratic experiment. Democracies rarely last, but the US has endured for two and a half centuries, despite a flawed history including land grabs, slavery, and enduring inequalities. The idealism of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution remains admirable.
Bicentennial memories and current concerns
Prose recalls the 1976 bicentennial as fun, with parades, fife and drum corps, and fireworks in her small rural town. Then-President Gerald Ford had sponsored civil rights legislation, Roe v. Wade was three years old, and the Supreme Court had brilliant judges. The Vietnam War had ended. Despite problems like growing military presence in Central America and urban disparities, there was hope.
However, Prose expresses uncertainty about the 2026 celebration under Donald Trump, who she says has rapidly made democracy less democratic. She notes that week by week, constitutional freedoms have been compromised, eroded, or obliterated.
Erosion of freedoms
Freedom of the press has given way to censorship and biased political operatives replacing investigative journalists. Freedom of speech has been diminished with protesters silenced, assaulted, arrested, or deported. Legal guarantees like habeas corpus and the right to a fair trial are disappearing. Schemes to redraw election maps threaten the right to vote in fair elections.
Prose criticizes Trump's hostile and aggressive tweets and messages, which she says lack minimal relation to the truth. Plans for a patriotic concert fell through when musicians declined; Trump instead proposed a MAGA rally, which Prose says hardly reflects a unified nation or the spirit of inclusiveness.
Military emphasis and autocratic imagery
The celebration is expected to emphasize the military with shows of force, a far cry from the high school drum corps of 50 years ago. Soldiers marching beneath fighter planes are features of autocracy. Prose finds it weirdest that a UFC cage fight was held on the White House south lawn, imagining Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin watching fighters in an octagonal enclosure.
She warns that Trump's pre-birthday rhetoric echoes the speech that preceded the January 6 insurrection.
Hopes for the future
Despite the dangers, Prose says she will celebrate the country's survival. She advocates combining merriment with true commemoration of why the nation overthrew a monarchy and why immigrants came for peace and better lives. She suggests speakers read the Bill of Rights aloud and remind crowds of the Constitution's promises.
Prose hopes that in another half-century, democracy will not only endure but triumph. She calls for a toast to another 250 years, cheering for a future where antidemocratic forces subside and the dream of what democracy can provide is realized.
