At 250, America Still Needs a Reckoning

This Fourth of July feels less like celebration and more like a moment to confront what we’ve built - and what we’ve avoided building.

A country can mark 250 years in predictable ways. It can lean on ceremony. It can let fireworks do the emotional work. It can smooth over history with music, flags, and spectacle. It can tell a simpler story than the truth allows.

Or it can stop and ask something harder.

What have we actually built - and what are we becoming?

That question feels unavoidabl…