Trump may yet get his July Fourth political rally and later his Washington, D.C. NASCAR race, but it\u2019s a hopeful sign that the effort to politicize this historic moment is already a failure. It has failed because Philadelphians \u2014 and many others \u2014 have shown how to embrace this hometown milestone by resisting facile flag-waving in favor of a deeper, kind of patriotism. It\u2019s a patriotism that \u2014 in the tough, questioning spirit of Frederick Douglass\u2019s searing 1852 \u201cWhat to the Slave is the 4th of July?<\/a>\u201d address \u2014 recognizes the complexity and profound contradictions of our past. It also recognizes the existential challenge now facing a democracy founded on the classically liberal ideas of liberty and rule of law while led by an illiberal, lawless President whose record literally reads like the Framers\u2019 1776 indictment of a cruel and unaccountable King.<\/p>\n Consider: The White House effort to literally \u201cwhitewash\u201d the history of slavery and the lives of the enslaved came up against determined opposition. The latest Third Circuit ruling notwithstanding, Philadelphians have relentlessly fought back<\/a> against the Trump administration\u2019s removal of the powerful displays about the enslaved people in George Washington\u2019s own house when he served as the nation\u2019s first President. That opposition spread to national parks and historic sites<\/a> around the country where factual narratives of removal of indigenous tribes and climate change are also slated for removal.<\/p>\n Just in recent weeks we\u2019ve had celebrations of Ona Judge<\/a> who escaped from bondage in George Washington\u2019s house. While at historic Stenton in Germantown, a WHYY community event<\/a> examined how the fight for freedom of Dinah,<\/a> a formerly enslaved woman, reveals the contradictions at the heart of America\u2019s founding.<\/p>\n Visit Philadelphia organized a day-long TED Talk event on the future of democracy, <\/a>appropriately held in what is now Marian Anderson Hall at the Kimmel Center, renamed last year for the courageous contralto who used the platform of the Lincoln Memorial in her iconic 1939 concert for a far higher purpose than a fractious weigh-in of preening MMA fighters.<\/p>\n There were substantive and celebratory events across the city for Juneteenth, an official federal holiday honoring the emancipation of the enslaved that the Trump administration refuses to recognize.<\/p>\n Further afield, parents in Central New Jersey<\/a> and elsewhere furiously objected to the the plainly partisan visits by Education Secretary Linda McMahon to local public schools to promote the absurdly named \u201cHistory Rocks\u201d \u201cpatriotic\u201d curriculum created by the late Charlie Kirk\u2019s Turning Point USA right wing youth organization and evangelical Hillsdale College. At Harper\u2019s Ferry, WV, some former park rangers are pushing back by teaching the removed Black history exhibits anyway.<\/a><\/p>\n Given this President and Vice President\u2019s stated disdain for the first American Pope\u2019s advocacy of peace on Earth, even the Constitution Center\u2019s nonpartisan idea of awarding Villanova alum Pope Leo with the prestigious Liberty Medal <\/a>turns out to be an unexpected act of resistance at this profoundly anti-constitutional moment in our history.<\/p>\n Still ahead is a Committee of 70 Summit <\/a>grappling with the challenge of how to fulfill the promise of democracy after 250 years.<\/p>\n Indeed, merely going to see the onetime Tony Award-winning 1776, whether the production by talented Philadelphia performing arts high school students promoted by former Mayor and Governor Ed Rendell, or this past spring by professionals at the historic Walnut Street Theatre, is its own small act of resistance.<\/p>\n We have to vote on November 3 for candidates who will hold up the American system of checks and balances, and bring our democracy back from the brink. Not just that, we need to get others to vote<\/p>\n Example: Hungary <\/p>\n But if the effort to hijack the Semiquincentennial has failed, it\u2019s critical to recognize the threats against another 250 years of U.S. democracy. So even as we enjoy the fireworks and really good concerts to celebrate July Fourth across our city, Commonwealth and country, I\u2019d like to suggest that the date that matters most this year isn\u2019t July 4, but November 3. That\u2019s when we will have the statewide and congressional midterm elections that \u2014 despite the unprecedented and blatantly partisan mid-cycle gerrymandering demanded by President Trump in red states, aided by Supreme Court decisions gutting the Voting Rights Act \u2014 will determine whether we are to have the checks and balances against unaccountable executive authority that our Framers intended.<\/p>\n Already, we\u2019ve seen the Department of Justice and FBI weaponized not only against the President\u2019s political enemies, but against vote-counting in Georgia and California and voting rights groups in Ohio. They have demanded voter rolls in many other states for no legitimate reason and ordered the postal service not to deliver mail-in ballots<\/a> in states that refuse to comply, though the courts have for the moment rejected this blatantly unconstitutional intrusion on state authority over elections<\/a>.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve seen the relentless repetition of the baseless and disproven claims about undocumented immigrants voting and \u201ccheating\u201d by Democrats, especially in big cities like Philadelphia and Los Angeles. We even have President Trump preposterously claim that he won Minnesota three times and continuing to demand Congress enact his anti-voting SAVE Act.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why the single most important and patriotic thing we can do to honor our nation\u2019s 250th is to be like Hungary on the third of November. Let\u2019s recall how Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s authoritarian \u201cilliberal democracy\u201d became a revered model for the MAGA right in consolidating power by political cronies capturing independent media, attacking universities, taking over the judiciary and skewing election rules to damage opposition. Yet this spring Hungarians nonetheless rose up after 16 years and overcame every obstacle to deliver a landslide<\/a> vote so large that even a well entrenched autocrat couldn\u2019t spin away.<\/p>\n We have to vote on November 3 for candidates who will hold up the American system of checks and balances, and bring our democracy back from the brink. Not just that, we need to get others to vote. We can volunteer in campaigns, and not just here in Philadelphia where the outcome is so often determined in the Democratic primary, but out in one of the nationally pivotal battleground congressional seats in northeastern and south-central Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley and Bucks County, where the battle for control of the next Congress will be determined.<\/p>\n If you can\u2019t see your way clear to voting for or working to elect a new Congress that will be a check on unconstitutional presidential power (which not long ago would have been thought a \u201cconservative\u201d value), then support nonpartisan voting rights groups that will go to court against legislation and lawsuits aimed at disenfranchising voters and disqualifying ballots around the nation: The Committee of 70.<\/a> Common Cause Pennsylvania<\/a>, the League of Women Voters<\/a>, the LDF<\/a> and Brennan Center for Justice.<\/a> Sign up to drive someone to the polls, be a poll watcher in voter protection efforts, or a nonpartisan poll worker, who are in increasingly short supply.<\/p>\n After all, our 250th year is a moment when Franklin\u2019s iconic response about whether we can actually keep our Republic hangs in the balance.<\/p>\n Communications strategist David M. Stone is a former Executive Vice President for Communications at Columbia University who previously served as communications director for U.S. Senator Harris Wofford and deputy chief of staff for Governor Bob Casey.<\/p>\n Women in traditional Hungarian dresses fill out their ballot papers at a polling station in a nursery school in Veresegyhaz, some 30km east of Budapest, on April 12, 2026, during the general election in Hungary. The vote could end Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s 16-year stint in power as the EU’s longest serving current leader and a self-decribed “thorn” in the bloc’s side. (Photo by Peter Kohalmi \/ AFP) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I admit, heading into this year of well-meaning celebrations and community Liberty Bells, I was ready to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[34,3612,3314,69,71,70,40361],"class_list":["post-232686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-donald-trump","tag-election-2026","tag-guest-commentary","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-semiquincentennial-250th"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>WASHINGTON, DC \u2013 JUNE 14: Diego Lopes celebrates after defeating Steve Garcia in a featherweight bout during UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House on June 14, 2026 in Washington, DC. President Trump is hosting a series of Ultimate Fighting Championship matches on his 80th birthday, which the White House is calling \u201ca once-in-a-generation celebration of the American fighting spirit.\u201d (Photo by Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images) <\/p>\n
MORE ON THE 2026 MIDTERM ELECTION<\/p>\n