A July 4th Requiem for America

Do you really want future generations to inherit a version of America that is more aligned with Russia than the one before 2025?

As of January 19, 2025, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was fine.

The White House East Room and Rose Garden were fine.

The Kennedy Center was fine.

Huge banners of the president’s face were not displayed on federal buildings in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. Agency for International Development was fine.

The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was fine.

The U.S. Institute of Peace was fine.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media was fine.

The U.S. Department of Education was fine.

The U.S. Constitution was fine.

The First Amendment was fine.

The concept of Due Process was fine.

The concept of Birthright Citizenship was fine.

The concept of Checks and Balances was fine.

Federal agencies respected states’ rights and decisions by federal judges.

The Election Assistance Commission was fine. Illegal immigrants did not vote in federal and state elections. Some voted in local elections in California, Maryland, Vermont, and Washington, D.C.

Agencies such as the FBI and DOJ were fine for the most part.

FEMA was fine and worked in emergencies without regard for the way states voted in elections.

Independent government auditors worked without fear of being fired and replaced by administration puppets.

Political opponents were not being arrested for their political beliefs. Some were arrested for crimes like vandalism.

Research funding for medical and climate change research was fine.

Funding for PBS and NPR was fine.

Immigration policies were largely fine.

Environmental laws to protect national parks and land were fine.

The level of international tariffs was fine.

The United States of America’s closest foreign allies came from similar representative democracies such as Canada, Japan, Germany, France, and England. Not from dictatorships such as Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Costs for groceries, gasoline, utilities were declining.

Events on the National Mall and at the White House were truly nonpartisan. The federal Hatch Act was allowed to work.

Since January 20, 2025, all that and more have changed.

I was born in Washington, D.C. in a hospital near the U.S. Capitol. My dad is buried in a cemetery near the Pentagon and proposed site of Donald Trump’s latest vanity project, a billion-dollar arch monstrosity reminiscent of ancient Rome. My sister is buried in the same cemetery.

So I am invested in D.C. But on July, 4, 2026, I look around and don’t recognize the city where I was born. Is this how Russians who were seeing some democratic reforms in the 1990s felt 18 months in to the 2000 takeover by Vladimir Putin?

I also see people — comedians like Stephen Colbert, individuals like U.S. Air Force Major Jason Watson, organizations like Indivisible— resisting. They are trying to retain the vision of America that future generations can proudly work to improve.

There are times when I am hopeful and times when I shake my head. Then I get back to work.

Kevin Shay is author of *Still Searching for Utopia: Essays and Columns Written Along a Road Less Traveled, Volume I.*

Citizens march for democracy and the U.S. Constitution in D.C. in 2025 and 2026. Kevin Shay photos