Fake Patriots Are Destroying Everything That Made America Great

A while ago, July 4th was a celebration opportunity. It’s a national celebration, hot dogs and parades, waving flags, fireworks day. John Upke celebrates the traditional holiday on July 4th Rest rabbit (1990), The final novel of his rabbit trilogy. In that novel, Updike’s anti-hero Harry “Rabbit” Anstrom, former high school basketball star and now adorns as his poor, middle-aged troubled late star, uncle Sam for the parade of Brewer, Pennsylvania (a thinly covered representation of real-life reading). His fake whiskers are held in anxiety by Scotch tape, and Angstrom investigates how the American crowd gathered in patriotic ecstasy.

The gray-haired woman sits in an aluminum lawn chair by the curb, dressed like a fat baby with checks and ruffles. Middle-aged men squeeze their kegurike thighs into bicycle shorts, designed for boys. The young mother came from a ground swimming pool in the yard behind her bikini and from a spandex high-side twist that exposed her butt and half her breasts.

Like Angstrom, Celebrities are incomplete and plagued by their own personal unrest, but there are also beneficiaries of the nation who have allowed them in small ways to enjoy Jefferson’s promise of pursuing happiness. Despite his physical decline, Angstrom has an epiphany. “Harry’s eyes burn, and as if lifted up to investigate all human history, it makes his mind worse and worse, and this is what the happiest fucking country the world has ever seen.”

Of course, Jefferson’s dream of freedom was never shared equally, and in fact was actively stolen by many. To Updike’s Trimphalist Good Cheary, Frederick Douglass’ classic 1852 narrative, “Is slave on July 4?”, in words that will never be forgotten, Douglas reminded the world that for those who have been enslaved, a patriotic celebration of freedom and citizenship is worse than meaningless.

The abolition of slavery does not end the stabs and connections of Douglas’s words. In 2025, America has a hellish president in destroying the principle of innate citizenship, one of the great achievements of Douglas’ hard-fought reconstruction to enshrine the 14th Amendment.

In Donald Trump’s America, harsh criticism of Douglas’ patriotic fantasies is making the truth more true than Pean’s update to “the happiest shitty country the world has ever seen.”

Polls document an increasingly pessimistic national atmosphere. According to Gallup, Only 31% of Americans Feel that the country is moving in the right direction. Furthermore, Gallup records that the pride of the nation is “new low.” only 58% of Americans Tell them they are very proud of their country or very proud. (This is down from the 91% high in 2004.) Among Democrats, this number is 38%, and 53% of independents. Only 41% of Gen Z Americans (born between 1997 and 2012) feel proud of their country.

Of course, darkening the mood of the nation goes beyond Trump’s presidency, and ultimately it can stem from the imperial imperial crimes in George W. Bush’s Earth War on Terrorism and the bipartisan failures that have ultimately ruled the new century (which continues to burn economic resistance). By chance, Updike’s home reading perfectly illustrates the long arc of national despair. Currently, reading remains, mainly Latinx cities. A democratic hub Kamala Harris won by 60% of the vote, but Trump increased his vote share by 16% between 2020 and 2024, helping him win in Pennsylvania. This 16-point shift was one of the biggest shakings of the 2024 election. Like many inland American cities, reading has never recovered from industrialization or changes in work abroad.