July 4, 2025: No Fireworks, No Sousa Marches…Just Grief and Dirges

🗽 “Fourth of July, Unfinished”

Afternoon, Friday, July 4, 2025 – Miami, Florida

Hello, everyone.

Today is, as you likely know, Independence Day in the United States and its territories. The Fourth of July—“the Glorious Fourth”—marks the day in 1776 when the Second Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, formally severing political ties between the thirteen colonies and King George III of Great Britain.

That historic step led to a protracted and brutal war for independence, one the revolutionaries ultimately won with crucial support from France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic. Ever since, successive generations have honored July 4th as “America’s birthday.” By that measure, the United States is 249 years old today.

And yet, many Americans—myself among them—struggle to celebrate.

Instead of patriotic fervor, we feel sorrow. Instead of hope, we feel grief. After the 2024 election and Donald J. Trump’s return to power, we mourn what we see as the collapse of American democracy.

In place of Sousa’s marches or the lush harmonies of Basie, Ellington, Parker, or the Gershwins, we now hear the dissonant chants of the J6 Prison Choir’s Justice for All or Forgiato Blow’s God, Guns, and Glory—anthems that echo through a fractured and fevered national psyche.

Looking ahead to July 4, 2026—America’s semiquincentennial—many of us feel dread rather than excitement. We find ourselves not only confronting the nation’s political unraveling, but reflecting on a century of cultural drift and erosion.

Fifty years ago, I was twelve—wide-eyed, hopeful, and looking forward to 1976 and the Bicentennial. It wasn’t just America’s 200th birthday I anticipated. I was also poised to leave behind my “tween” years and mark my thirteenth birthday, just months before the celebration.

I still love this country. But love does not require silence or complicity. And I cannot ignore the bitter irony that so many Americans—descendants of immigrants, like me—have voted, time and again, to dismantle the very ideals that made this country a beacon.

They’ve embraced a dystopian, authoritarian vision. A government—if we can call it that—led by those who elevate cruelty, tribalism, and hate over unity, truth, and compassion.

So this Fourth of July, I mark America’s birthday with love, yes—but also lament. Because to love a thing is to grieve when it is lost. And I fear we are losing something essential, not just in our politics, but in our collective soul.