By Abe Greenwald
Tuesday, April 01, 2025
This morning on the podcast, we talked about America’s
Bicentennial celebration in 1976. John was a teenager, so he remembers it in
detail. Christine was too young to remember it at all. Then there’s me in the
middle. I do recall it, but I didn’t share what I recalled because I was five
years old in 1976, and it’s hard to describe such early, hazy impressions.
It’s easier, however, for me to do in writing. And I
believe that, in some sense, I experienced the Bicentennial in the most
profitable way possible. Because I was so young, the celebration of America
formed an intrinsic part of my then-developing consciousness. What I remember
is a merry atmosphere of red, white, and blue; stars and stripes; patriotic
songs; and extended discussion of America’s glories—which I couldn’t entirely
follow but still managed to absorb. The effect was such that I internalized patriotism
the way one first picks up language or numbers. I couldn’t have questioned it
any more than I could have unrecognized my mother.
And I was deliriously overjoyed, as only a child could
be, to discover the Bicentennial quarter—as if the coin with its image of the
colonial drummer was a kind of pocketable lucky charm. It assured me that I was
in the best possible place at the best possible time—and always would be.
So I admit to being deeply, unconsciously biased in favor
of America. I was practically programmed to love this country.
And then I got older, which meant I became more
analytical and more skeptical. And I had to figure out if I liked
America as much as I already loved it. I discovered that I did. Which, in turn,
intensified that love.
What luck! And I do mean luck. Because had I been born
in, say, 2015, I would have been five years old in 2020. And the atmospherics
of the country would have had a very different formative effect on my
developing consciousness. Instead of clinging to the lucky charm of a newly
minted quarter, I might have invested my mystical hopes in the talisman of a
disposable paper mask. And overhearing conversations about viruses and vaccines
and death counts, I might have internalized the ambient fear of the pandemic.
Which would have primed me for the ambient anti-Americanism that would turn
2020 into an anti-celebration of the founding of the United States. The riots,
the lectures, the kneeling, and the vast reeducation regime would have assured
me that I was in the worst possible place at the worst possible time—and always
would be. Nor would the January 6 assault on the Capitol disabuse me of this
certainty.
I would have been brainwashed into despising my country.
And what chance, then, would I have had when it came time to assess its virtue
more analytically? Would I even approach the issue more analytically? Love of
country, like all love, can feel too good to be true. We question it out of
self-preservation, to ensure we’re not being fooled into giving more than we
should. Questioning hate carries the heavy risk of letting your guard down for
an attack. It’s much safer to blindly preserve your aversions than your
affections. I would have been doomed.
Anyway, that’s the road down which my mind headed as we
talked about the Bicentennial. The discussion was occasioned by next year being
America’s 250th anniversary. In the past, Donald Trump has talked about marking
it with a year-long national celebration involving a Great American State Fair
and a Garden of Heroes. I hope it all comes to pass. These things can matter a
great deal, especially to children. I still feel a hint of something
inexplicable when I see a Bicentennial quarter.
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