Independence Day: past, present, and future...

 Well, kids, the American Experiment made it to another birthday. I'm sure everyone celebrated appropriately, and I hope everyone still has the same number of fingers that they started with.

I had a memory surface this year. When the big one, the Bicentennial rolled around, I was a tiny schoolboy in the Pre-K class at the Horace Mann School in Washington D.C. At the end of the school year, they had a little pageant, of which I remember very little, save for exactly what I was wearing: I had a white button down with a red vest over it, with a little toothpick flag stuck in the lapel. Not just any flag, mind you, but one with a circle of stars with "76" in the center in place of the usual design. I had a pair of brown pants rolled up to the knees with long white socks beneath, ending in my shoes; my usual sneakers but with cardboard squares covered with tinfoil worked into the laces, giving the effect of buckles on the shoes. I looked positively colonial.

It dawned on me that whoever wins the Presidential election in the fall will be the President that will preside over the 250th Independence Day. The "Sestercentennial", and yes, I had to Google that, so you don't have to.

Now, we've all seen Donald Trump's gold gilded bathroom. We have a good idea of the man's sense of fashion and style. The gaudy spectacle that this man would inflict on this country would... honestly solidify a lot of the negative sterotypes held by the rest of the world about us. Joe Biden's probably would too, but his would be more beaches, barbeques, hot dogs, and fireworks; a simpler, more wholesome America. Plus, he won't plaster his name and his face all over gods-damned EVERYTHING. Eric Trump famously, incredulously stated that "His father built the New York skyline." (He didn't.) A couple of short years from now, Donald will be trying to put his face on Mount Rushmore.

So, I know some of you that read this are going to vote for Trump, and nothing I write will change your mind. (Who am I kidding; nobody reads this.) I just wanted to give those of you who, like me, are planning on voting for Biden (or whoever ISN'T Trump) just one more reason to do so. Let's have the party we deserve in 2026. Let's hope the American Experiment is still having birthdays by then.