Happy 250th birthday to America and to all my fellow citizens. Let’s celebrate!

But first, let’s reflect for a moment on the state of our republic.

(If you read my columns regularly, you might assume that I’ll begin by unleashing my Trump Derangement Syndrome on our president. You’re mistaken; I’ll save that until the end.)

The United States is, indeed, a nation worth celebrating, a great nation and, really, an exceptional one. Still, I cringe a little when I hear someone bragging about American exceptionalism or boasting that the U.S. is the greatest nation that God ever deigned to bestow upon our globe.

Sometimes the same people assert that we’re a Christian nation, as well, forgetting that Proverbs 27:2 says, “Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth; an outsider, and not your own lips.”

Nevertheless, we have a lot to celebrate this July 4, even if it would be better if we let someone else do the bragging.

It’s beyond the scope of this column to enumerate all our nation’s virtues, so I’ll mention just one of my favorites:

We are truly a free nation. We can still, pretty much, say and do whatever we want. For example, I’m proud of the fact that desecrating our flag and other national symbols is seen as a legitimate—if unseemly—form of protest in our country.

If we object to national policies, the Supreme Court has held that we can express our objection by burning the flag. We can also use it for a doormat, turn it into a swimsuit or patch our jeans with a scrap of the flag.

This isn’t the case everywhere, even in countries considered liberal democracies such as ours. In France, an offender can be fined up to 7,500 euros. In Germany, a flag-burner can be imprisoned for three years. In Mexico, it’s four years.

Sometimes I’ve thought that the most patriotic act a citizen could perform on July 4 is to incinerate a flag on his backyard fire pit. I’d never do that—neither should you—but I’m proud of a nation that has the courage and self-confidence to permit such speech acts. Now, that’s exceptional!

Certainly, our nation has its problems: We’ve never sufficiently resolved the issue of race; our wealth gap is unhealthy for a democracy; we eat too much; we may be developing a gambling problem; we’re not taking climate change seriously; we’re largely ignoring the threat of artificial intelligence; we should take better care of every citizen’s health.

But, as our 250th anniversary approaches, I’d rather live here than anywhere; I’m guessing that you would, too.

But there’s a problem with this year’s celebration: Our president.

President Donald Trump likes to compare himself to other presidents, usually to their detriment. In 2024, he said that he is “better than Lincoln, better than Washington.” He’s compared himself favorably to William McKinley and negatively to Herbert Hoover.

But maybe he’s most like Teddy Roosevelt. Here’s what his daughter, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, said about T.R.: “My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding, and the baby at every christening.”

And D.J.T. wants to be the star of our nation’s celebration of its nativity.

When several performers bowed out of the planned national birthday bash, Trump said:

“I am thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP…”

Evidently, Trump has never heard of Proverbs 27:2.

It’s also evident that Trump is not well. If you lived next door to him, you wouldn’t invite him to your backyard July 4th party. You wouldn’t let him near your hot tub; look what he did to the reflecting pool.

Our national challenge is to celebrate the birth of our worthy nation without celebrating Trump.

I’m certain we can do it. Happy Birthday, America!

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