This week marks the 250th birthday of the United States. My country. Your country. A country that was once seen as a beacon of freedom around the world; a country that walked softly and carried a big stick, that prided itself on straight talk over empty bluster and boastfulness. A country with a big heart, one that shared its wealth with the world through USAID, the Peace Corps, the Voice of America, through free medical aid and direly needed vaccinations. A country with open arms, one that was proud to welcome the world’s “huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” that even erected a statue to that ideal.
But this year it feels to me like we’ve never seemed more in danger of losing our soul, our heart, our democracy. Woody Guthrie’s 1940s lyrics never seemed less appropriate.
This land is your land,
this land is my land,
From California to the New York island,
From the redwood forest to the
Gulf Stream waters,
This land was made for you and me.
A Gallup poll released this week said only 20 percent of those surveyed were “extremely proud” to be Americans. That’s down from 70 percent in 2004. That’s quite a stunning drop, but if you start adding up the reasons, you can see why.
Jewish Americans are facing open antisemitism and threats to their places of worship. The president of the United States routinely labels Black Americans, including a former president and his wife, as “low IQ.” The Supreme Court is methodically dismantling civil rights and voting rights, and has overturned a woman’s right to choose. The hardworking immigrants who build our houses and harvest our food and do our dirty work for minimum wage are being summarily arrested and imprisoned, leaving shattered families and broken lives behind. Our military routinely assassinates people in small boats in international waters. Liars and racists and soulless sycophants work at the highest levels of the White House and Congress.
I’ve roamed and rambled and followed
my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her
diamond deserts
All around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me.
Was it made for you and me? Our national parks are seen as corporate profit opportunities — places where our history is censored and government propaganda distributed. Our school systems are being defunded, our children treated as commodities, sold to private academies using public tax dollars as payoffs. Our prisons have become a multibillion-dollar business, serviced by rogue federal agencies and an immigration policy designed to give them hundreds of new customers each week. Our free press is being taken over by vapid billionaires with no understanding of the First Amendment.
When the sun came shining, and
I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving and
dust clouds rolling
As the fog was lifting, a voice was
chanting
This land was made for you and me.
Guthrie’s lyrics celebrate the American ideal, not the current reality. But this land was founded on the principle that the people rule, not kings. This land was made for you and me. Not for Donald Trump or Stephen Miller or Elon Musk. Not for Bibi Netanyahu. Not for Vladimir Putin. Not for oligarchs and billionaires and quick-buck preachers or come-lately media kingpins. You and me.
Our democracy is all we have. We should be outraged that obeyance to party and power are enabling one man to desecrate the hallowed symbols of our nation’s capital and build new ones dedicated to his own image. We have fallen into a dark place, where the rhetoric of fear, hatred, division, and boldfaced lies have become normalized. We are better than this. I believe it in my heart, just as I believe this ugly fog of ignorance and greed will lift someday. This land is our land. We just have to take it back. Maybe seeing one of the verses that was cut from Guthrie’s original version of the song will help:
Well, as I was walking, I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing
That side was made for you and me.
