Every Fourth of July arrives like a relative made entirely of lighter fluid and unresolved mythology.

It knocks on the front door with a fistful of Roman candles and a grin so aggressively wholesome it feels federally subsidized.

“Come celebrate freedom,” it says.

Then it immediately starts blowing pieces of the sky apart.

America has always had the curious habit of expressing gratitude by detonating the atmosphere.

I participate because resistance seems unpatriotic, and because someone has already handed me a paper plate whose structural integrity depends entirely upon potato salad. Families bloom across suburban lawns like colonies of lawn chairs pretending to be civilizations. Children run through the twilight carrying glow sticks that resemble tiny emergency exits from reality.

Above us, fireworks erupt into impossible flowers.

The heavens develop expensive migraines.

People applaud the explosions with the earnestness of shareholders at a quarterly earnings call.

Who are we clapping for?

Chemistry?

The ghost of King George politely acknowledging that, yes, this all seems rather excessive?

The smoke spreads over everything like history refusing to stay inside the museum.

That may be America’s greatest talent.

We don’t bury history.

We barbecue beside it.

Every contradiction gets marinated in optimism until it tastes vaguely patriotic.

Every uncomfortable memory receives a commemorative T-shirt.

Every impossible question is wrapped in bunting and escorted toward the gift shop.

I imagine the United States as a gigantic bald eagle wandering a fluorescent supermarket at three in the morning.

It has forgotten why it came.

Its shopping cart contains liberty, debt, jazz, aircraft carriers, barbecue sauce, moon landings, reality television, constitutional amendments, inflatable swimming pools, and seventeen different brands of breakfast cereal called Freedom.

At the checkout, every item scans as “Complicated.”

The cashier shrugs.

“That’ll be everything.”

Outside, fireworks continue converting money into nostalgia.

The stars look embarrassed.

The moon files a noise complaint.

The constellations quietly begin updating their résumés.

Somewhere, history stands beside the grill wearing novelty sunglasses and insisting that tonight is not the night for difficult conversations.

The ghosts nod.

They’ve heard that one before.

Nothing says national confidence quite like celebrating yourself with controlled explosions.

Nothing says mature democracy like arguing over whose flag is more authentic while everyone buys theirs from the same warehouse.

Nothing says permanence quite like spectacles that disappear before your brain has finished naming the color.

Perhaps America has become a machine that burns symbolism for fuel.

Perhaps patriotism has become a subscription service.

Perhaps irony is the only honest language left.

I believed that for a long time.

Everything became easier once transformed into satire.

Flags became costumes.

Institutions became memes.

History became content.

Hope became embarrassing.

Cynicism became sophistication.

If you could laugh at everything, then nothing could disappoint you.

What a wonderfully efficient prison.

Then something happened that irony was never designed to survive.

Reality became more interesting than the joke.

President Trump returned to office speaking a language that many Americans had begun to suspect politics had forgotten: that a nation’s government should first concern itself with the interests of its own people. His supporters saw a renewed emphasis on secure borders, domestic manufacturing, American energy, reduced regulation, tougher trade negotiations, and a foreign policy that projected strength while arguing that allies and competitors alike should take American interests seriously.

You may agree with that agenda.

You may reject it.

But you cannot honestly describe it as irony.

It is a proposition.

It is an attempt.

It is a vision of government that says national sovereignty is not an outdated superstition but the foundation upon which self-government rests.

Perhaps that is why my metaphors suddenly began to fail me.

The eagle was never really trapped in a supermarket.

It was waiting for someone to remind it that it could fly.

The fireworks were never covering up reality.

They were celebrating the possibility that reality is still worth improving.

The flag was never merely cloth.

It was a promise—sometimes kept, sometimes broken, always demanding another generation willing to repair it rather than merely ridicule it.

I had mistaken permanent skepticism for intellectual courage.

I had confused cleverness with clarity.

I had treated irony as though it were wisdom, when often it was simply fear dressed in better vocabulary.

There is a peculiar comfort in believing every institution is corrupt beyond repair, every ideal is camouflage, every patriotic gesture a performance.

It relieves us of responsibility.

If nothing is worth believing, then nothing is worth building.

But nations are built anyway.

Usually by people too busy working to become professional cynics.

The older I become, the less interested I am in perfect governments and the more interested I am in governments that remember whom they serve.

The less interested I am in fashionable despair and the more interested I am in competent stewardship.

The less interested I am in applause for clever observations and the more interested I am in results that ordinary families can actually feel.

Supporters of President Trump believe we are seeing the beginnings of those results: a government placing greater emphasis on national security, economic growth, energy independence, domestic industry, and the idea that American policy should primarily benefit American citizens. They see that not as nostalgia, but as a practical course for the future.

Maybe history will render a different verdict.

History usually does.

But history is written after the work is done. And right now, the work is looking better than it ever has before.

Citizens have to decide while the concrete is still wet. They should learn to count their blessings before they count the sheep.

The fireworks have ended now.

The smoke has finally lifted.

The lawn chairs are empty.

The paper plates are in the trash.

The jokes are still funny.

They’re simply no longer sufficient.

Because somewhere beneath all the contradictions, all the absurdity, all the noise, there remains an unfashionable conviction that refuses to die:

That America is not a punchline.

It is not a brand.

It is not merely an argument.

It is a country.

Imperfect.

Restless.

Stubborn.

Capable of failure.

Capable of renewal.

And still—against all fashionable expectations—worthy of celebration because it is now, always has been and always will be the greatest nation on the face of the earth.

The last spark disappears into the darkness.

This time I don’t mistake the darkness for emptiness.

I recognize it for what it is.

The hour before dawn.

and I, for one, am totally happy with the way things are because I am doing as well or better now than I ever have before…and really I cannot find a thing to complain about. I am grateful for all the wonderful things that are happening all around us. I wish others felt the same…. and I am sure that millions of us do. I see it in the pride and passion of their celebrations this year.