America 250 Proves That Patriotism Is Vanishing

America’s muted 250th birthday year reveals a nation increasingly divided by politics, memory, identity, and competing visions of its founding story.

Joseph Ford Cotto | September 21, 2026

America turned 250 this year and barely flinched. That is the sad semiquincentennial story. Not the spectacular, record-setting fireworks. Not the majestic, patriotic official program in Washington. Not the special flags that still went up in picturesque small towns.

The story is how fast a country can lose the conviction of being one people.

In 1976, the bicentennial was not a niche event for history buffs. It was a national spectacle. Tall ships entered New York Harbor. The largest American flag then made hung from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn. Wagon trains retraced pioneer routes. Schoolchildren memorized the Declaration of Independence.

CBS ran Bicentennial Minutes. America Rock segments played on television. Merchandise covered the shelves: stamps, coins, mugs, plates, even commemorative toilet paper. Block parties mixed Republican and Democrat neighbors after dark. The country was coming off the Watergate scandal and long-term war in Vietnam. Torturous stagflation and mounting institutional distrust spread from sea to shining sea. Yet Americans still chose to honor their country’s birthday as a common inheritance.

This would not be the case 50 years later.

Keith Preston said as much on News Sight, the current-events insight and analysis program I host. He is a remarkably independent political analyst. For about 25 years, Preston has run a news-and-commentary site that carries voices across the political spectrum. He has written books, contributed to magazines, and lectured to paleoconservatives, Marxists, libertarians, and anarchists. That range is why his reading of the semiquincentennial is useful. He can describe what different tribes actually believe.

“The bicentennial was a big deal,” Preston said. “I remember news coverage of it being everywhere, people talking about it everywhere, banners and stickers and all that kind of stuff.”

He has not seen that for America........

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