Fifth of July 1776, Fifth of July 2026
I believe in you.
Good morning. It is the fifth of July, 2026. I am waking up after riding in the Redmond Oregon parade with my family, lounging with my dogs, and eating delicious food.
250 years ago, 56 men1 woke up having signed a document that put their lives on the line. If things did not go the right way, the proof at their trial would be the indelible ink on the Declaration of Independence.
They won that war. They were not executed for their defiance of a king. You know that.
It is 250 years since. Their experience is complicated to explain across the 250 years. You could say that a group of racist, sexist, elites signed a paper that amplified a war. Their heritage, which had already caused great damage to the cultures and people who had lived on that continent, went on to brutalize them for hundreds of more years.
You could say that they were heroes, visionaries. You could say that they paved the way for people all across the world to have unprecedented say in their fate.
The signers were a divided group, full of very real disagreements. They disagreed about whether a human could be property. They disagreed about religion. They disagreed about the goals of the very war they were fomenting. They would continue to disagree as our then shiny-new country was being formed.
I am no scholar of the United States Constitution, but I sure appreciate it. In these divisive times, I think of it as a platform for non-violent disagreement written by people who witnessed violence, survived, and wanted to minimize further violence. More parades that get a mention in the local paper and then fade from memory. That is the good life.
250 years later, I share that goal. And I believe that our founding documents can continue to serve us. They seem to be such enduring genius.
We are living through history now, history that we will be asked to account for. History that will be simplified for age-appropriate lessons that will be taught to the test. Just as 1776 is simplified.
Living through history, I see that my old lessons of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington are too narrow. It was murkier, noisier, more chaotic. It was hard to tell what was important.
But they placed bets and worked for what they believed in. In the course of all those shots heard round the world, they had disagreements that seem petty now. They believed things that seem ridiculous now.
We know what was going to happen next. They did not.
I don’t know what is going to happen next for us. I don’t have any astute analysis. I just know what I am going to do. I am hopeful that we can turn this into boring history as quickly as possible.
When those men all woke up on the fifth of July, what did they think? Were they resolute? Were they doubtful? I have certainly felt both at times over the last ten years. I imagine that they did, too.
I am waking up today with a bundle of worry and hope in my head. But I lean on two things.
One, I lean on the uncertainty. If someone tells me that they know it is going to go one way or another, I know they are an idiot. If someone says we should play the odds and plan on what they think is likely, I won’t be swayed from doing what I believe is the right next thing. The future is guaranteed to surprise us, regardless. Prediction is akin to surrender in my book.
Two, when I put my phone down, I see more good people doing good things than bad. My phone selects for unusual cruelty and idiocy. Most people I meet in person act with caring and thought. My phone is not an accurate sample. I believe in the communities that I see with my own eyes.
Maybe that is what the signers were thinking on the morning of the 5th of July, 1776. They saw all the troubles around them but they saw that their community was holding together, prepared and capable. That the world ahead extended beyond their own imagination but that they could help bend its direction.
Happy birthday, USA. I believe in you.
Technically, 48 men signed on 4 July. Eight others signed shortly after. This is not a piece to get hung up on that sort of technicality. It is literally a footnote.