The Hill's Headlines — July 4, 2026
Happy Fourth of July!
I wonder — how many Americans will be bothered or offended by that greeting today? And how many more Independence Days will we celebrate as a country? We have made it to 250, but it’s hard to imagine another hundred. It is much easier to imagine 20 or less.
A strong argument can be made that the left — via majority control of the media, academia, entertainment, science and medicine — is slowly but surely winning the messaging war. In fact, you might say they are crushing it.
Just look at the trend of stories online citing the fact that millions of Americans have little or no interest in celebrating the 250th anniversary of our nation. Or look at the rise of so-called “democratic socialist” candidates, who look upon the country created by our Founding Fathers as something that needs to be torn down and rebuilt from the inside. Don’t forget about the alarming results of a recent poll showing that more than half of Americans under age 30 said believe “democracy isn’t essential to the country’s identity.”
It is little wonder. Many of those young Americans grew up believing, after years of being taught in school, that our Founding Fathers were White supremacists and evil slave-owners from the privileged class, whose vision, courage and sacrifice must now be reexamined, rewritten and largely swept into the dustbin of history.
But it’s not just young people. In a recent Beacon Research-Shaw and Company Research-Fox News poll, Americans were split over America 250. Fifty-one percent of registered voters said they were excited for the 250th anniversary, while 49 percent said they were not. It is a result that would have been shocking before the Trump era; now it is the accepted norm.
As this evolution in viewing the history and meaning of our nation continues, here is a logical question: What day, reason, or event will the left pick to replace the Fourth of July?
Will it be May 1, International Workers’ Day? That is the day chosen by communist leaders and countries to honor the labor movement, the working class, and the ideological triumph of socialism. Will some on the left want to switch out the names of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin to celebrate instead Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro or Pol Pot?
Or will those who are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome lean toward Jan. 20, 2029, because that will be the last day of the Trump presidency?
As the Fourth of July and the history of our Founding Fathers — one I wrote about in my book, “The 56” — continues to wither under the constant smears from the left, it is natural to wonder what those who revile the the birth of our nation and the dead white men behind it will glorify in their place? If the current trend continues, we may find out much sooner than later.
Douglas MacKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official.
