Where I live, neighbors last week marked the Fourth of July in the customary way: as hundreds gathered, someone read the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution out loud and somebody else sang the national anthem. There were refreshments and flag decorations for all, and a grand parade through the streets to celebrate America’s birthday.
That’s the way it’s been done in Mount Washington in Northwest Baltimore for at least the last quarter century, even with the overpowering heat this year.
But the Fourth of July felt different this time beyond the suffocating weather.
The reading of the Constitution evoked muffled sobs this year, and there were tears spotted during the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Something feels like it’s slipping from our grasp, something about the spirit of the country as we’ve always imagined it.
Joe Biden’s presidency feels like it’s ending ahead of schedule, and Donald Trump is promising “retribution” for anybody who has angered him over the past eight years. And the U.S. Supreme Court just gave him the murderous go-ahead if he’s reelected.
This year, the Fourth of July felt like a kind of farewell to the America we thought we’ve always known, the America where we reach for common ground instead of reflexively antagonizing each other.
Farewell to the America where the most optimistic people on earth happily embraced the future, instead of cringing from its darkest possibilities.
Farewell to the America where we thought our institutions would protect us from the weakness, frailty and damaged nature of individual human beings.
President Biden, exposed in the fullness of his 81 years in his June 27 televised debate with former President Trump, refuses to admit to himself the obvious: he’s not the man he used to be.
There were 51 million people watching that debate — millions who love him and millions who don’t. They came up with the same conclusion: this man who would be 86 at the end of his second term in the White House is simply too old for the job.
It leaves us with Trump, who would be 83 when Biden reaches 86 and is a danger to America whatever his age.
Trump, whose speech is as garbled and meandering as Biden’s but camouflages it with bombast, bullying and relentless congenital lying.
Trump, who’s guilty of multiple felonies, of gross personal misconduct, of orchestrating mob violence attempting to overthrow the government, and still awaiting charges he stole top secret documents and then tried to hide them. Yet he leads in the most recent reliable recent polling.
What kind of nation sees this kind of man as its guiding hand?
And we’re left with a Supreme Court, historically the institution in which most Americans place their greatest faith in steering the country sanely, now to have given the divine right of kings to whomever might be president.
Even to Trump, a man who threatens openly to seek retribution from anyone he considers his enemy.
And let’s not forget it’s the same high court that tells half the country they no longer have control over their own bodies. And fails to hear the cries of schoolchildren while making it easier to carry guns. And engages in the most egregious conflicts of interest and, in the case of Justice Clarence Thomas, tells us the abortion ban is just a start and that gay marriage and contraception may be next on the court’s agenda.
So once again, it was lovely to celebrate the Fourth of July this year. The sight of so many patriotic neighbors filing through the streets of Mount Washington warmed all hearts.
But the day carried not only celebration but a kind of poignancy, as though we were bidding farewell to a country and way of life we once assumed was strong enough to endure any manner of challenge.
And now we’re not nearly so sure.
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books, including “Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore” (Johns Hopkins University Press) and “Michael Olesker’s Baltimore: If You Live Here, You’re Home” (Johns Hopkins University).
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