The United States at 250: "Consideration of the 250 years of the US should include a healthy measure of self-questioning and contrition"

Two hundred and fifty years ago, in 1776, the verdant landscape of New England was the site of momentous events that still reverberate across the globe. Colonial Americans cast off the yoke of the British crown and parliament. They initiated the modern revolutionary era and, along with the French a decade later, established the idea of a republic with an elected representative assembly as the template for a modern state.

Many small towns in Massachusetts are little changed since those days. Their white wooden churches, meeting halls and village greens were, and are, where events, movements and controversies are discussed. A similar deliberative process shapes politics and public life in Denmark and the Netherlands, in particular.

In such intimate and essentially egalitarian spaces, small and big ideas and matters of belief and observance are addressed in a balanced, careful discourse, utterly unlike the ego-centred bellowing of the present incumbent of the White House and his adherents, not to mention the cacophony of social media.

The revolution in North America two and a half centuries ago remains a lively focus for both professional and citizen historians. Battles fought against numerically superior British forces, for example at Lexington and Concord, are celebrated. There’s genuine pride in the establishment of the republic and of the values of the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776.

Famously, it proclaimed that “all men are created equal.” This marked a step-change. While the rebellion had begun with demands from colonials for British rights, the revolutionaries introduced universal rights, though one must add that this didn’t include women or slaves.

Setting that right actually took two more centuries, with the addition, in 1975, of Section 203 to the 1920 Voting Rights Act. And even now that same right is under constant challenge by racists and fascists trading as constitutional fundamentalists.

PETROCHEMICAL MONSTER

But historical context is important. For their time, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, which followed it in March 1789, were extremely progressive, imbued with liberal Enlightenment values and common law.

The Constitution wasn’t the first such document, but it’s the oldest, most long-lived written constitution. It established a balance between the different offices of State: the executive, headed by the president, the two-house Congress, representing the constituent States and the judiciary as independent arbiters in matters of law, a model that has been replicated in many countries.

It, and the American Revolution that spawned it, proved hugely influential. The American success convinced French radicals that a republic was possible and theirs was achieved in 1789. It also inspired the United Irishmen to campaign for an Irish republic, with political equality for all, regardless of religion.

Thoughtful Americans recognise the idealism and benevolent, though patrician, intent of the Founding Fathers. But then they look at how the ideals have been undermined and contorted since 1776. It’s their very own Paradise Lost, replete with a descent into the perdition and corruption, autocracy, greed, shamelessness, meanness and cruelty that hallmark the reign of Donald Trump, the Man Who Would Be King.

Donald Trump

Yes, there have been huge positives over the centuries, as though ambition and action had to match the vast landscapes and skies. Consider America the Good: the opportunities and the energy, the technology – boats, trains planes and automobiles and rockets – the industry and business, the architecture, the cities, the arts, and the intoxication of a can-do culture. And there is generosity, warm hospitality and great kindness too.

But, on the other hand, there are the conquests, land seizures and exterminations; the thefts, extortions and exploitations; the great savagery at home and abroad, including deeply rooted racism; the wars that begot wars that begot even more wars, often at the behest of special interests, above all the petrochemical monster. And always, the expansion, the wild energy and brute force, military and economic alike, and an eye for the main chance.

So, as well as the celebrations of global-scale achievements, consideration of the 250 years of the US should include a healthy measure of self-questioning and contrition.

OPEN TREASURE CHEST

There’s fat chance of that with the Yella Fella in power. The only reflection he’s interested in is the one he sees in a mirror. The same may be said for the comb of quiffs he surrounds himself with.
What’s to be served up on the 250th anniversary won’t be pretty. Instead of reasoned debate and reflection, we’ll get TP Barnum-style yankee doodle dandy codswallop, bombast and bullshit, a carnival of crass and self-serving narcissism.

There’ll be parades, a state fair on the National Mall, a UFC fight at the White House, a physical fitness competition in Orlando, Florida, a Grand Prix race through the streets of Washington, a new dance hall, a tainted World Cup...

Jaysus wept. Talk about the good, the bad and the ugly!

Look, maybe where the US is in 2026, riven by disagreement, host to rampant capitalism and perhaps the origin of the technology that will finish the human species, is the logical conclusion of where it started 250 years ago.

Remember, Wolfe Tone’s diaries suggest that he was unimpressed by America. He thought George Washington a high flying aristocrat, whose allies in the US Senate advanced policies that would frustrate true republicanism and “bring in more dollars to the chests of the mercantile peerage of America.”

Prophetic words. Certainly, that mercantile peerage has prospered since 1776. The American continent proved an open treasure chest for those with the money or the knowledge as to how to exploit it. And look what happened to Native Americans, their lands stolen, their culture destroyed...

In any sane, balanced history there are positives and negatives. The adults in the room look at everything in the round, understanding that we can’t undo the past and there’s no merit in trying to rewrite it so that it works best for us and not the others.

EGALITARIAN IDEAL

The best example of this sprit of calm reflection and analysis – that we can think of at least – is Ireland’s Decade of Centenaries. That discourse around the seismic events that shaped the future of the emerging nation was remarkable for the genuine engagement of historians, writers, interest groups and members of the general public.

Politicians were there, naturally, but they weren’t front and centre. There was no attempt to impose one narrative. All points of view were acknowledged.

The USA would do well to take this as the model for their anniversary celebration, and to rekindle the quiet, considered reflection of the small meeting houses, to mark and celebrate what’s great and noble about America while also allowing people to acknowledge what’s ignoble, maybe even on occasion evil – and what might be changed for the better to return modern America to the egalitarian ideal expressed in 1776.

Back then, the intellectuals of the US and France and other revolutionary movements elsewhere were part of an Atlantic network promoting Enlightenment ideals like natural rights, the sovereignty of the masses and the social contract.

Wouldn’t it be a fitting tribute to the events of 1776 to rebuild this kind of Atlantican intellectual exchange, focussing on how we can all advance in peace and constructive good-will to meet the shared challenges of the next 250 years?

• The Hog