About America's 250th
As America celebrates its 250th birthday, here’s how to enjoy—and endure—the festivities in the Washington area.
A-meh-rica at 250
My best friend was born on the Fourth of July. In recent years—some difficult years for the country—that has given me a level of plausible deniability. I still go to the beach and watch fireworks and down hot dogs like a sword swallower. But I’m not really celebrating America. I’m just celebrating my friend.
America 250 [link] is a different beast, the first national milestone anniversary I’ve been alive for. I thought this year might feel different, more patriotic. It doesn’t.
I love this country, and lately the things I love the most about it feel particularly threatened. We’re lucky to be so diverse, but our multicultural melting pot is being diluted by ICE raids and growing white-nationalist sentiment. Our national parks and landmarks fill me with great pride, but the Environmental Protection Agency has been gutted and half the White House was razed to dust without warning. Liberty and justice for all, a promise this country has always struggled to keep, feels more unreachable than ever. We can’t even afford gas, thanks to a massively unpopular foreign war. Meanwhile, our President has gotten $4 billion richer since taking office.
So, in keeping with my recent tradition, I’ll be ignoring this summer’s America 250 fanfare and pouring out an Orange Crush for my friend’s 24th birthday. Inevitably, I’ll share the beach with some revelers, who will blast “Born in the USA” too loudly from a wireless speaker and shriek the chorus as if it’s some sort of festive anthem. I’ll hope they’re having fun, but I also wonder if they’ve ever listened to the verses, a story of all-American alienation. I have, and secretly I think that makes me more patriotic.
—Kate Corliss
Red, White, and Woo-hoo!
Look, I get it. The current state of the Union is both dire and dumb. We are bombing our way to those higher gas prices, giving measles a second wind, and seriously contemplating a national memorial “Garden of Heroes” that would include statues of Charlton Heston and Alex Trebek. In rake-stepping times like these, who wants to make merry?
But party we should. Party we must. It’s practically our birthright. Life and liberty? Very good, five stars, highly recommended. The pursuit of happiness? Now we’re talking. Because, really, what’s the point of the first two without the third? Alive and free and moping sounds dreadful. Benjamin Franklin—whose devotion to the American project was matched only by his devotion to Parisian social life—would not approve.
And speaking of the founders: Sure, this country was born largely because a bunch of disgruntled well-to-dos decided, no, actually, I would rather not pay more taxes. But we also came to be because those same grumblers saw our British overlords stepping on rakes and decided, no, actually, We the People can do better, somehow. To celebrate America in the face of every ridiculous thing happening in the here and now—if NASA stuffed Kid Rock into an Orion capsule and sent him on a joyride to the moon, would anyone be surprised?—is to channel the same wonderfully wild, mostly unearned optimism that made America possible in the first place.
So yes, be upset. Don’t celebrate this national milestone blindly. But do celebrate. Acknowledge the bad, remember the good, scarf some hot dogs, and cut loose. We the People can still do better, somehow, and it’s easier to pursue happiness when you allow yourself to feel it.
—Patrick Hruby
This article appears in the June 2026 issue of Washingtonian.
