America at 250: Will we live up to our promise? | The Chestnut Hill Local

In one of my favorite episodes of “The Office,” Michael Scott describes his worst birthday. His mother hired a pony for his party. But he got a rash and spent three hours covered in ointment.

It was supposed to be the best birthday. It ended with calamine lotion and no pony.

In some ways, that’s what America’s 250th birthday feels like.

This should be our time. The World Cup. The Major League Baseball All-Star Game. March Madness. All coming to Philly. Even the Manayunk Bike Race is back.

A time to celebrate our nation’s founding right here at home, with one of the …

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In one of my favorite episodes of “The Office,” Michael Scott describes his worst birthday. His mother hired a pony for his party. But he got a rash and spent three hours covered in ointment.

It was supposed to be the best birthday. It ended with calamine lotion and no pony.

In some ways, that’s what America’s 250th birthday feels like.

This should be our time. The World Cup. The Major League Baseball All-Star Game. March Madness. All coming to Philly. Even the Manayunk Bike Race is back.

A time to celebrate our nation’s founding right here at home, with one of the greatest documents ever written declaring the fundamental rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of the American dream.

A time to reflect on what we’ve learned over 250 years and to ask how we make our union ever more perfect.

Instead, according to Gallup, Americans are reporting the lowest levels of optimism about their future ever recorded.

That’s not a small thing.

We are a nation founded in contradiction, proclaiming life and liberty while enslaving Black Americans, perpetrating genocide against Native peoples, and denying equal rights to many. Yet from the beginning, we also held out the promise of the pursuit of happiness.

When too many Americans stop believing that they have the opportunity to build a better life than the one that they inherited, something fundamental is wrong.

We see it every time we go shopping. At CVS, gum can be more than $6; Oreos, $7. A box of cereal is pushing $9.

Rent is too damn high. Health insurance is out of reach. Too many people feel squeezed.

Families were promised a “golden age” by Donald Trump. Instead, tariffs have driven up costs. Immigration crackdowns have terrorized communities and devastated our economy. A federal budget bill cut health coverage and food assistance for struggling families while expanding tax breaks for corporations and adding trillions to the national debt.

It is no coincidence that optimism is at historic lows. Immigration policy has been shaped by Stephen Miller, who has long championed sharply restricting immigration and advancing an exclusionary vision of American identity.

A nation built by immigrants cannot thrive when its leadership attacks those immigrants and sees future newcomers as a threat rather than a strength. When that tone comes from the top, it fosters a toxic, weaker view of who we are as Americans and erodes confidence in the future.

Our history is being sanitized and perverted. The enslavement exhibit at the President’s House on Independence Hall was removed until a judge intervened in a case that is now being appealed. Racist imagery of President Obama was shared and defended by the president, alongside White House rollbacks of civil rights protections. Trump’s attack on Bad Bunny’s Spanish language Super Bowl performance reinforced the message that immigrants and Latino Americans are somehow un-American.

People are tired of being told to accept bigotry as normal and to ignore what they see and feel. The majority of Americans reject a provincial vision of this country that narrows who belongs.

We are already seeing that rejection at the polls in special elections and in 2025 races across the country. As my friend Seth likes to say, special elections are like water samples. You test in different places to understand the overall health.

What we’re seeing suggests something fundamental and enduring about this country. We are a democracy with free and fair elections. When we do not like what we see, we correct it. We the people.

The question at 250 is simple. Will we live up to the highest aspirations of our founders, or succumb to their worst instincts?

Americans get a chance to decide this November.