Reflections on America’s 250th

It’s hard not to feel glum as I write this post on the 250th anniversary of my country. I remember celebrating the 200th as a teenager. As I recall it, it felt like the country was ready forward to better times. The Vietnam War and Watergate were over. Americans celebrated the 200th with exuberance. Today, the stagnant, possibly toxic state of the Reflecting Pool, along with Trump’s hijacking of Congress’s America250 funds for his personal Freedom250 group to create an empty and lifeless Great American State Fair on the National Mall, perfectly symbolize Trump’s enshittification of America. However fitting it may be to be glum, a country cannot move forward if it has no hope. So I offer the following hopeful thoughts about the U.S., starting with a speech made some years ago. A man wrote me and said: “You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from…