As fireworks burst over the National Mall and parades march through small towns, America is marking its 250th anniversary with both fanfare and fury. The celebration of the nation's founding has become a battleground over the meaning of its core principles.
The framers crafted a system designed for imperfect people to form a 'more perfect union,' but that vision now faces sharp criticism from within. A growing chorus of Democratic and socialist leaders is publicly denouncing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as tools of oppression.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani used a naturalization ceremony to attack the country, describing a hellscape run by 'oligarchs who buy elections' while 'children go to sleep hungry.' He mocked the narrative of American exceptionalism, telling new citizens that 'the story of America has so often been written by those who were told by others with power and influence and wealth that they were anything but exceptional.'
Pennsylvania state Rep. Chris Rabb, the unopposed Democratic nominee for the 3rd Congressional District, went further. Speaking at an event titled 'America at 250 — Trump Fascism, Historical Erasure, and the Battle Over Truth,' he lashed out at a country built on 'stolen land and stolen labor.' He dismissed the founding documents as 'screeds' that 'purposely erased indigenous and black peoples,' and declared that 'fascism is not new. These systems of harm are built into the very fabric of this nation.'
Former MSNBC host Joy Reid said black Americans don't celebrate the Fourth, dismissing what she called 'MAGA America' as 'sad, pathetic, boring.' Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) used the anniversary to praise Cuba as a model of success. Meanwhile, a poll shows only 45% of Democrats feel pride in American citizenship, reflecting a broader crisis of faith in the republic.
Ten blue states—Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Pennsylvania—declined to participate in the 250th anniversary celebrations on the National Mall. In Massachusetts, a historic church ended its longstanding Fourth of July celebration to focus on 'the ongoing process within the congregation to better understand our own whiteness.' This is the home of John Adams, who wrote that the day 'ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.'
The framers, particularly James Madison, created a constitutional system of checks and balances to harness democracy's self-destructive tendencies. They rejected what Benjamin Rush called 'mobocracy,' a fate that befell the French Revolution, which descended into the Terror. As French journalist Jacques Mallet du Pan wrote, 'Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.'
Today, critics argue the republic's founding was flawed from the start. But supporters see the 250th as a reminder of the Enlightenment principles that made America the world's oldest successful republic. As one observer noted, the question remains: 'What then is the American, this new man?'
