This column is being republished with permission from its original home on Substack. For more from Michael Ian Black, subscribe here.

I’m not sure how many of us, across these United States, will be in much of a mood to celebrate on this fine 250th anniversary of our country’s founding, but the occasion at least calls for a touch of reflection.

A nation once described as of the people, by the people, and for the people has now been reduced—again—to a nation of certain people, by certain people, and on behalf of certain people. Two hundred and fifty years of incremental progress now falls under threat by those who put King George’s wealth and madness to shame. While our founders certainly understood that people of bad intention would, one day, stand for public office, a constitution written by men of honor failed to anticipate that their ancestors would lack the fortitude to stop such a usurper.

“A republic, if you can keep it,” indeed.

Those words of hope and warning were uttered by Benjamin Franklin to describe the new government being formed within Independence Hall. For two and a half centuries,........

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