I cannot in good conscience celebrate America's 250th birthday. We cannot celebrate what no longer exists.

Dear TAT readers,

The subject of today’s short essay has been weighing on my mind for months. Until we vanquish this corrupt and treasonous administration, restore rule of law, honor the constitution and recover our rights, there is nothing to celebrate. Yes, it was very difficult to write those first two sentences. I and a couple hundred million Americans are what in my youth, were called true patriots, left, right or otherwise. We are the resistance. Our constitutional republic, born of elite, progressive values (for the time) has been hijacked by an egomaniac, oligarchy, a bought and paid for SCOTUS, all of which are enabled by a spineless and corrupt Republican Party in the Trump era.

SCOTUS, our very own Kangaroo Court - by Paul Cobaugh

Today’s GOP has taken America so far from our founding values, as to make our formerly esteemed American democracy, into nothing more than a blurb in world history books, or at least until the GOP rewrites them too. Mom was a lifelong Republican and Dad the same type of Democrat. They both voted across party lines throughout my life, when facts and wisdom told them to. Dad began his career teaching history and government and had a large library of academic material at home in his office. I sat by those books looking at pictures until I could read. Thus began an insatiable life of fascination with our brilliant founders, their expansively progressive ideas and their heroic courage breathing life into a nation unlike anyone had seen before. My parents and our founders are now rolling in their graves.

America didn’t always live up to our founding values but over the arc of history, has mostly moved far closer to them. Of course, our Civil War was really the war to maintain our union and to hold those founding values higher than at any time prior. We fought and won the war to put our feet back onto the path that those extraordinary founders foresaw for us. We have fought many wars since and our nation held together, or at least until the Republican Party during the Newt Gingrich era sold their souls and chose a path of aggressive oligarchy, greed, white Christian Nationalism, and the scorched earth GOP politics of the late 70s and 80s. Today’s GOP is now a far-right extremist movement masquerading as a political party. They are now committed to dismantling the very American democracy that so many real patriots died protecting. We now live in an autocracy that our founders would have gone to war with, if they were alive today.

Corruption has no party and at times, Democratic corruption has been a wound to our democracy as well, but never remotely close to what we experience today. Today’s GOP doesn’t just want corruption, they want unbridled power and for the most immoral of purposes. Their fake patriotism rings not only hollow, but is an outright lie. Republican voters are addicted to the culture wars cultivated by the GOP and their cooperation with Russian propaganda. Because they have been conned by the combination of GOP and foreign influence operations, we can no longer reach them whether they are family, friends, co-workers or those in our communities. In the meantime, the DNC has become a hapless band of political dinosaurs, incapable of campaigning or even standing up for our national principles.

It’s as if the DNC is trying to lose the midterms. Only last week they released their long-awaited “autopsy” detailing why they lost the last election. It wasn’t just the last one either. I wrote my own DNC autopsy here on Substack, on November 12th, 2024, just one week after the disastrous election. Now, with American democracy on the executioner’s scaffolding and with only 6 months until one of the most consequential elections in US history, the DNC is absent from the electoral battlefield entirely. Most campaigns begin shortly after the last election and the DNC has been AWOL now for a year and a half. Between the gross incompetence of the DNC and the selling out of America by the GOP, my normal optimism is being gravely challenged. Where is the America I was raised to believe in?

My life and my family’s lives have been primarily one of service to the greater good. It’s simply family tradition. My uncles served during WWII, both of my veteran parents served during the Korean War and my cousins during Vietnam. Like my father before me, I enlisted in the Army at 17 in 1974, roughly a year before the infamous scenes of US troops pulling out of Saigon. When I returned to the Army 26 years later and shortly after the war on terror began, I served in Iraq, Afghanistan and a few other delicate places in the world. My son like me and my father both, enlisted in the Navy at 17 and we both served in the Middle East at the same time during one of our combat deployments. We are true believers in America. It’s not a matter of politics either. We serve because we don’t say “no” when the nation calls, whether in uniform or otherwise. We are not alone. There are millions of other American families that have answered the call too. That’s the America that I grew up believing in.

Our long-planned national celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of our Declaration of Independence from Britain is moot to me. We cannot celebrate something that no longer exists. We may still have the same name, but there is so little left of our nation and its principles, I have no idea what anyone will be celebrating. I doubt that I am not the only one that feels this way. I will dedicate our Fourth of July holiday to efforts to recover the America we all once believed in, hoping that we can resuscitate Lady Liberty. I will look for ways to impact the wallets of the shameful oligarchs who fund today’s republican party. I will also use the time to support candidates that are willing to take on every single republican in office. Not one of them is worthy of the title “congressman.” At every turn they have given the Executive Branch, every power once reserved for the Legislative Branch. I will support any effort to remove all six far-right Supreme Court Justices who daily abuse their power and privilege. My celebration will be in support of those risking everything to restore our nation.

Sure, I will miss family events but there’s work to be done. I also don’t wish to ruin family events that include those that have put party over country, vote against their own self-interests and all the while claiming to be good “conservatives.” They are not conservatives for anyone who has ever used a dictionary or encyclopedia. Those who’ve voted 2 or 3 times for Trump and his party are all… far-right extremists embracing and cheering on pedophilia, open and excessive corruption, the GOP’s predilection for ignoring any law that serves their purpose and selling our national security to Russia and China. They cheer wars without purpose and yet, will still go to events on Memorial Day weekend proclaiming their devotion and patriotism. What a pile of road apples (country talk for horses$#t). As they fawn over their dear leader, they are concurrently supporting the wars for oil and power that only add more of those mournful white headstones to our national cemetery.

The U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission formed in 2016 and headed by Presidents Barak Obama and George W. Bush have been working for a decade to create this celebration. While that I am deeply grateful for these two presidents from different parties taking on this project, nothing now is the same as in 2016.

America250?

"Comprising the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, established by Congress in 2016, and America250.org, Inc., the nonprofit supporting organization to the Commission, America250 is a nonpartisan initiative working to engage every American in commemorating the 250th anniversary of our country. This multi-year effort, from now through July 4, 2026, is an opportunity to pause and reflect on our nation’s past, honor the contributions of all Americans, and look ahead toward the future we want to create for the next generation and beyond.

Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and Former First Ladies Laura Bush and Michelle Obama serve as Honorary National Co-Chairs. The effort is supported by a bipartisan Congressional Caucus of more than 350 members — the largest caucus in U.S. history."

- America 250

I hold no ill-will to those who choose to celebrate. After all, we are the world’s longest surviving representative government, or at least we were until the Trump era. As mentioned, my celebration will be in employing my energy to the restoration of the republic. After Trump’s birthday military parade from last June, I don’t think I could bear watching another poorly attended and humiliating debacle where Republicans mouth lies about their poisonous cocktail of White Christian Nationalism and fake patriotism. I’ve lost any pretense of pretending to be nice when discussing today’s Republicans. Every last one of them that still support the GOP are now officially “MAGA Republicans.” Maybe if the situation were less dangerous to our national security, I could still smile and be “nice,” but after more than a decade of having lies, half-truths and full-blown conspiracy theories shoved down my throat, my patience is no longer up to par.

We must remember that it’s not just the GOP and their oligarchs that put our republic on life-support. Today’s cowardly media are serving their bottom lines and don’t give a damn about democracy. Some of the most high-profile media sellouts are CBS, Disney, Reuters, the BBC, Paramount, Nexstar, Sinclair etc. etc. etc. There is also a special place in hell for Rupert Murdoch and his treasonous FOX News empire, along with the other main far-right extremist channels like Newsmax, Breitbart, OAN etc. Most entertainers have gone silent too, especially the music industry with but a few exceptions like Bruce Springsteen. The music industry is largely as corrupt and cowardly as most mainstream media outlets. The only bright spot from a genre perspective have been America’s comedians who I liken in the Trump era, to knights on horseback racing to the rescue and demonstrating brilliant and courageous leadership. Maybe on the Fourth of July and after a day of work supporting the resistance, I will binge on Colbert, John Stewart, the Jimmy’s, Seth Meyers and so on. I don’t believe that I will be alone.

I will not belabor these personal thoughts of mine. Sometimes less said is better. Every honest American knows the score. We are surrounded by an odd combination of Americans in the Trump era. Corrupt and selfish oligarchs, true patriots in the resistance, of all political stripes, Cowards like the media, news, music industry etc., schoolyard bullies which pertains to all Republicans since 2024, courageous resistance figures, a traitorous administration, voters hiding out afraid of their own shadow and an army of partisan pundits of whom less than half have any real knowledge about what they babble about and of course, Republican voters who are ashamed to admit they were conned or are too brainwashed to recognize reality. We have only six months to prepare for the biggest election since 1860.

Those of us willing to fight for what is rightfully and constitutionally ours, will unfortunately have to do our job and the jobs of all the rest. Republicans are no longer worth any effort. As I have explained about my years in counterterrorism, once humans reach a level of radicalization such as today’s GOP, they are mostly psychologically incapable of readjusting to reality. This means that even family members will be tragically lost to most of us. Friends and co-workers the same. We must now focus on who we can convince to join in the fight to restore our system of government to the luster our founders gifted us in 1776. It is a cause that 1.3 million Americans have died for since our founding. This is the price that liberty often requires. Some of those 1.3 million are my friends and colleagues. Last weekend’s Memorial Day weekend, refreshed my commitment to not dishonor their sacrifices. It may not be a civil war yet, but if more of us don’t pitch in, the risk becomes evermore present.

Our job, is to see to it that we hand off to our children and grandchildren, a nation that can see another 250 years of American democracy.

Onward America