America’s Big Birthday is getting closer. Yes indeed, we are now just over two months away from the 250th birthday of America on July 4, 2026.
There is much to celebrate, and one can be sure that millions of Americans will be out in full force in the cities, towns and villages of this great country.
But what about the media? You know, the media that can’t abide President Trump and his decidedly patriotic Make America Great Again movement.
As one old enough (ahem!) to recall the bicentennial celebrations of 1976, there were all kinds of events across the country that year. Ten years earlier in 1966, the Congress had created the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission. The first decision, to have a single celebration in either Boston or Philadelphia, was quickly abandoned.
Then there was some backtracking on the Commission itself, with the creation in its place of the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration (ARBA). ARBA went about encouraging the fifty states and the localities in those states to have hundreds of celebrations across the country. The logo of ARBA was even placed on a postage stamp. And in more spectacular fashion it was painted on the Kennedy Space Center Vehicle Assembly Building.
But there were problems. The American Left inserted itself into what had been presumed to be non-partisan celebrations. The Boston Tea Party was recreated, but instead of tossing tea into Boston Harbor as was the original effort of the colonists protesting the British tea tax, Leftist protestors took over and politicized the re-enactment, tossing oil barrels labeled “Exxon” and “Gulf Oil” into the harbor. In addition there was a hanging of an effigy of former President Richard Nixon.
On the positive side, a train dubbed the American Freedom Train started out in Delaware on a 21-month, 25,388-mile tour of the 48 contiguous states.
Very much on American minds was the famous poem of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow titled “Paul Revere’s Ride.”
As a school kid in Massachusetts in the very long ago, my classmates and I were required to memorize the poem, which immortalized the two lanterns hung as a signal to Revere in the steeple of Boston’s Old North Church. The lamps were to let Revere know how the British were marching on the surrounding towns and villages. The poem began:
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in ‘Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light, —
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.
President Ford went to Boston to light a third lantern, signifying the start of a third century for America that was a celebration of American renewal and traditional values.
The question that surfaces now is just how the liberal media of today will treat the 250th celebration? What will Americans hear from the media on that celebration? Will there be reenactments of Paul Revere’s ride? A celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence? A celebration of the writing and passage by the states of the United States Constitution? You know, the document that says this in the First Amendment (bold print for emphasis supplied):
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Almost a full 250 years after the creation of the United States, with much tumultuous history along the way, there is much for Americans to celebrate. The question is whether the liberal media will recognize that there is in fact much for Americans to celebrate in this the 250th year of its birth. And cover those celebrations in the positive fashion that they deserve to be covered?
We shall see.
