America is destroying itself, and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence arrives at a moment of profound embarrassment for the Republic. The United States, established to overthrow a mad king, has now elected one of its own. Scholars in 30 or 40 years, if they exist, will wonder how the richest country in history, with the world's most powerful alliance network and unparalleled scientific capacity, chose to throw it all away.
The Roots of Decline
In his book The Next Civil War, Stephen Marche interviewed hundreds of experts to fathom the underlying causes of America's decline. Most researchers blamed 2008, the financial crisis that crippled social mobility. Others pointed to 1980, when income inequality spiked and trust in institutions cratered. Some looked further back to 1876, the end of Reconstruction, or even to the Civil War. But since Trump took office again, it has become obvious that the crisis has been there from the beginning.
George Washington's Farewell Address predicted the hyperpartisanship now ripping the nation apart. Abraham Lincoln prophesied: 'If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher... as a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.' His prophecy has come true.
The Myth of the Revolution
The semiquincentennial is an opportunity to reconsider the American project. The revolution, like any creation myth, exists half in a dream space. Ken Burns' documentary The American Revolution reveals the founders as men in the mess of history—a stew of ideals, venality, and interests. They committed brutalities and shone with bravery. The founders' love of liberty derived directly from their practice of slavery. Jefferson wrote the Declaration while a valet, the son of his slave and father-in-law, served him tea. George Washington wrote: 'The crisis is arrived when we must assert our rights... or submit to every imposition... till custom and use shall make us as tame and abject slaves, as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway.'
The revolution began with propertied men desiring no limit on their property but was fought mostly by men who owned nothing. It was a civil war as much as a struggle for liberation. Benjamin Franklin's son was a loyalist.
American Exceptionalism and Nostalgia
The most revolutionary effect of American independence was creating a sense of the United States as an exception to history. American exceptionalism runs deeper than belief—it is ingrained. A recent Pew Research poll found that 59% of Americans believe its best years are behind it. The distant American past, rather than the future, is increasingly the basis of its political structure. Trump's originalism has become the dominant framework of the legal system. Since the Bruen decision, which applied a historical standard to the Second Amendment, US courts have been flooded with arguments about views of guns from 250 years ago. Racial gerrymandering has returned, invented by founding father Elbridge Gerry.
Trump is the ultimate nostalgia act. 'Make America great again' is a call to the revolutionary spirit. Rush Limbaugh said after January 6: 'There's a lot of people out there calling for the end of violence... who say that any violence or aggression at all is unacceptable... I am glad Sam Adams... Thomas Paine... the actual tea party guys... didn't feel that way.' Trump symbolically chose $1.776 billion for his 'anti-weaponization fund,' echoing the revolutionary year.
The Poison of Liberation
Americans aren't addicted to liberty itself, but the sense of liberation, the throwing off of shackles. The revolution rendered mobs overthrowing political authority by violence an explicit political good—the foundational political good. It is pure poison. They are drinking their own poison, and they're dying of it. American exceptionalism continues unabated. The US foreign policy can be reduced to a line from an officer during the Tet offensive: 'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.' As Americans return to their origin, they are losing themselves. The originalists are rendering the constitution meaningless. They have torn down the White House all on their own; the British didn't need to burn it.
