Shabbat shalom!
This is a short post this week since we are traveling with family.
It’s the 4th of July, and we are heading to Staunton center to watch the annual parade of flag draped trucks, local politicians, and kitschy floats. But this year, celebrating our country feels different. While I still love this country, I am not as proud to honor it today, nor to celebrate the liberty it represents. I can’t help but pause—not to celebrate liberty, but to mourn what we’ve allowed it to become. Here we are, just six months into the orange man’s return to power, witnessing a nation unspooling from the inside out.
As we mark 248 years since the Declaration of Independence, the irony makes me want to puke. We are watching the declared values of that document—liberty, equality, the dignity of man—get bulldozed by a regime of oligarchs who believe the government should exist solely to shield and benefit the rich and punish and marginalize the desperate. They are actively dismantling the social safety net, gutting civil rights, and weaponizing immigration policy into something that can only be described, without hyperbole, as proto-fascist. The Billionaire class are cheering the dismantling of food assistance and Medicaid from their vacation compounds. The Department of Justice is now in the business of justifying cruelty with scripture. We now have political influencers gloating—yes, gloating—about building concentration camps for undocumented immigrants and the sick fucks even brand them with disgusting and sickening swag. And while all of this degradation is taking place, the orange man continues his debasement of the office by launching a perfume brand with a stench of corruption and strong notes of graft.
This is not strong governance. This is not patriotism. It is moral rot wrapped in the flag.
And for American Jews watching this unfold, there should be alarm bells blaring louder than any firework. We would be foolish not to see the parallels. We, a people shaped by exile and atrocity, cannot afford to treat any of this as background noise. We know where this kind of politics leads. We know what happens when cruelty becomes the policy and truth becomes optional.
So no, I won’t be waving a flag today with the same ease and pride as years past. But I will show up—because showing up still matters.
Because loving this country doesn’t mean ignoring what’s broken. It means caring enough to notice, to speak up, to push back when the gap between our ideals and our actions grows too wide.
As I watch the floats roll by and the kids wave their little plastic flags, I’ll be thinking not just about where we’ve been—but where we’re going. And whether we’re willing to do the work of making liberty real for everyone, not just the privileged few.
Because if patriotism means anything, it has to include accountability. And if Jewish memory means anything, it has to include the courage to name injustice, even—especially—when it happens close to home.
This year, I’m not just celebrating independence. I’m remembering what it asks of us.
Enjoy the holiday! And remember, be careful out there.
Brad out.
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