Independence Day has arrived as the United States is rocked by hearings over the Jan. 6 insurrection, awash in turmoil over high court rulings on abortion and guns and struggling to maintain the bonds that keep it together.
Yet many also see cause to celebrate Monday: the deadly danger of the pandemic has lessened and, despite its fault lines, America’s democracy survives.
“The Fourth of July is a sacred day in our country — it’s a time to celebrate the goodness of our nation, the only nation on Earth founded based on an idea: that all people are created equal,” President Joe Biden tweeted on Monday. “Make no mistake, our best days still lie ahead.”
Even as the holiday gave a roiled nation an occasion to pause, for many, the celebrations felt tinged with political turmoil.
“I think many of us are feeling conflicted about celebrating 4th of July right now,” obstacle race champion and attorney Amelia Boone tweeted as the week gave way to the long holiday weekend.
In her eyes, patriotism is also about fighting for change: “I’m not giving up on the US,” she added.
That sentiment is no doubt shared by millions who on Monday will be celebrating the nation’s 246th birthday and anniversary of independence from British rule.
It’s a day for taking off work, flocking to parades, devouring hot dogs and burgers at backyard barbecues and gathering under a canopy of stars and exploding fireworks — in many cases, for the first time in three years amid easing coronavirus precautions.
Baltimore, for one, is resuming its Independence Day celebrations after a two-year hiatus, to the delight of residents like Steven Williams.
“I used to actually be up there every year. Then it stopped,” Williams told WBAL-TV. “I haven’t seen them in a couple of years.”
Colorful displays big and small will light up the night sky in cities from New York to Seattle to Chicago to Dallas. However others, particularly in drought-stricken and wildfire-prone regions of the West, will forgo them.
Phoenix is also again going without fireworks — not because of the pandemic or fire concerns but due to supply-chain issues.
In emotional ceremonies across the country, some will swear oaths of citizenship, qualifying them to vote in the upcoming midterm elections.
To be sure, these are precarious times: An economic recession lurks, and the national psyche is raw from mass shootings like those seen recently at a Texas elementary school and a New York supermarket.
Sharp social and political divisions have also been laid bare by recent Supreme Court decisions overturning the constitutional right to abortion and striking down a New York law limiting who may carry a gun in public.
But for many, July 4 is also a chance to set aside political differences and to celebrate unity, reflecting on the revolution that gave rise to history’s longest-living democracy.
“There’s always something to divide or unite us,” says Eli Merritt, a political historian at Vanderbilt University whose upcoming book traces the fraught founding of the United States in 1776.
But he sees the Jan. 6 hearings probing last year’s storming of the U.S. Capitol as a reason for hope, an opportunity to rally behind democratic institutions. Even though not all Americans or their elected representatives agree with the committee’s work, Merritt is heartened by the fact that it’s at least somewhat bipartisan with some Republicans joining in.
“Moral courage as a locus for Americans to place hope, the willingness to stand up for what is right and true in spite of negative consequences to oneself,” he said. “That is an essential glue of constitutional democracy.”