The United States celebrated its 250th birthday this weekend. Like all those who are told that their glory years are behind them, my country showcased its youth and inexperience with much rejoicing.
The festivities were organised by Freedom 250, a Republican-dominated group that President Trump chairs. To acquire the necessary and proper funds, the group ran donate-for-access advertisements and diverted congressional appropriations from the bipartisan America250 group.
With that money, Freedom 250 set up a Great American State Fair. Most of the musical acts backed out after learning of Trump’s switcheroo, except the late, great Vanilla Ice. The ‘ICE, ICE Baby’ jokes wrote themselves.
Some states opted not to send any fair exhibits at all – Connecticut had some flyers and two chairs. The Ferris Wheel broke down, and the crowds were as scattered as the British armies at Yorktown.
Elsewhere, a particularly ebullient skydiver draped in American flags fell face first into a tent. He got up with a cut lip as his only injury, simultaneously personifying 250 years of American resilience and Monty Python’s Black Knight – ‘tis but a scratch!
On the bright side of civic life, a 30-minute fireworks display lit up the National Mall. The Washington Monument projected powerful displays of red, white, and blue.
These showings of prosperous exuberance evoke strong feelings of both pride and embarrassment: Pride in being part of the wealthiest, freest, and, dare I say, greatest liberal republic in history, and embarrassment at the collective expression of that heritage.
The American founders would quickly recognise that a free self-governing people must possess individual and civic virtues. Ben Franklin, when asked what system of government was decided upon at the Constitutional Convention, best captured this philosophy with his infamous response, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
But as Franklin’s private life in 1780s Paris demonstrated, salacious pomp and decadence go hand-in-hand with philosophical contemplation and worldly entrepreneurship as hallmarks of American virtue.
Perhaps this dichotomy best encapsulates what it means to be an American. One day, we are inventing cures for polio and celebrating liberty as humanity’s fundamental need. On another day, we are drowning in Diet Coke and forcing FIFA to overturn a red card – Dr Washington and Mr Trump, if you will.
Such split personalities make one wonder: Apart from the world’s best universities, air conditioning, craft beer, rock and roll, the end of communism, artificial intelligence, and revolutionary medical innovation, what have the Americans ever done for us?
“Brought peace?”
Oh, peace? Shut up!