The Day After

Finding New Hope in July 4

Heading into this long weekend - with Saturday marking the nation’s 250th birthday - my thoughts were darkly distracted by the ugly spectacles at the White House: The destruction of the East Wing, cage matches on the south lawn, and of course the failed American “war” in the Middle East.

I was thinking, this is no kind of Fourth of July as we have known it over my lifetime. My sour new feeling was by contrast reminding me, most of all, of how we happily observed the 200th anniversary in 1976 fifty years ago.

But seeing how this current weekend has actually unfolded - more broadly, not just the pictures from Washington but in neighborhoods that make up our real American nation - those current scenes in DC happily fade into so much background noise.

The news media are right to help us all keep a close and critical eye on Trump and his regime. But moreso we ought to remember all our fellow Americans, how they celebrated the 250th this weekend, and how their spirit and our own are what will help save us all from the extremism of low characters and low choices in Washington.

o

On Independence Day 1976, there was amid the celebration also much heartbreak to remember and to mend - and it seemed to make that Fourth of July a prime moment to feel somehow better about all that our nation had lived through…

• Our republic had lived through the upheaval of Watergate. President Nixon had resigned in 1974.

• There were too many dead and maimed from the lost War in Vietnam - and the TV images of US embassy personnel, scrambling to grab onto the last helicopter out of Saigon in 1975, underscored the defeat.

• Gerald Ford, a decent man, was now our President, having succeeded Nixon after the resignation, and there were new national campaigns for the White House. Within five months, the American people would elect Jimmy Carter.

But what makes this July 4 weekend hopeful for us now has been to see all the happy, boisterous neighborhood celebrations of freedom and independence, and the reemergence - as the green grass and tulips flower again each the spring - of all the basic goodness of our people and nation. City by city, neighborhood by neighborhood.

In Nashville, for instance, there is a traditional observance over on Whitland Avenue, a block south of West End, that typifies how Americans love their country and most of their neighbors, if not their President.

On Whitland, there is music and a patriotic children’s parade and traditional speechmaking. (I remember hearing multiple speakers over the years dramatically reading the Declaration of Independence.) This year a young woman named Natalia, a refugee of the war in Ukraine, sang the American National Anthem, in English.

This observance has persisted over the years through many changes of administrations in Washington. What goes on in Washington is not unimportant, but what US citizens do in their celebration of America is more important.

o

In his column today in The New York Times, Benjamin Wallace Wells suggests the United States may not be as deeply caught up in Trumpism as many political writers like to report. Current polling confirms that Trump has proven to be a deeply divisive leader, with a vanishing support base when voters are asked more broadly than just his MAGA faithful.

“…even if Mr. Trump’s evangelical base remains mostly loyal, Republicans keep getting clobbered in special elections. Tech accelerationism is still minting unimaginable fortunes but has also generated populist rage against artificial intelligence and data centers that probably counts as the biggest grass-roots backlash since at least Occupy and the Tea Party.”

For most of us, Trump’s bitter, scowling message - of personal vengeance, shameless greed, and wrecking-ball destruction of America’s place in the world - has worn very thin by this summer.

His utterly lost war in the Middle East, with its ripple effects on energy and other consumer prices, and that never-authorized (by Congress) war has now put him in the tank most of all.

God bless America.

© 2026 Keel Hunt