America Rings In its 250th, With Rifts Aplenty

The politically charged environment has challenged elected leaders and historians. As Johann Neem, a historian at Western Washington University put it: “If you’re not with Trump, how do we celebrate this?”

“He wants to claim the Revolution as loyalty to him, and that’s just not how it’s supposed to work,” he said.

The political discourse has changed since 1976, when the country last celebrated a milestone birthday, Dr. Neem said. Now, those on the left condemn the paradoxes interwoven with America’s founding, like slavery, and those on the right reject criticism of the founding fathers or their system of government.

“People are fighting over who gets to claim the Revolution,” he said. “Before, everyone was claiming it as their own. Now, people are like, Do we want to claim it at all?”