This is the America I'm Celebrating Tomorrow

July 4th will never not be my favorite holiday

I grew up in Seattle in the 90s, which means we had really great professional sports teams like the Mariners and the Supersonics (I refuse to acknowledge them by their new name) and one team that was perpetually on the struggle bus. The Seahawks were so bad that they would practically stand on street corners and beg people to take tickets. OG Seahawks fans are legit. They are long suffering, loyal, and they deserved it when the Seahawks suddenly got awesome. I, however, was never a Seahawks fan so I damn well wasn’t going to start once they were winning because I didn’t earn it. I was raised better than to be a fair weather fan.

You don’t get to be a fan just when times are good.

I don’t often agree with Paul Krugman but his new article in Rolling Stone does a pretty great job of laying out exactly how Trump took a nation and an economy that were doing remarkably well and destroyed it just for pettiness and greed. It’s bad, there’s no way around it, but it’s not over, and it’s not unrecoverable. It’s also not the only thing that is happening.

The worst times show you who you really are, and these times are proving that Americans are fighters. I am living for these videos that show protestors keeping ICE awake at their hotels every night until they are forced to flee, the videos that show firefighters, police, and everyday people all coming together to chase ICE away and protect whoever they were trying to kidnap. The neighbors who fought these thugs to protect a mother, and this hero who refused to allow them to take the undocumented immigrants in his car. We are not a people who will just sit back and let some wanna be fascist take over our country- even if the same cannot be said for the losers in Congress or every single Democrat with any kind of power anywhere.

Congress just passed a horrifying, appalling, deeply damaging, unethical and unAmerican bill and they did it the day before July 4th. It is further proof that they are the baddies and they know it.

This is a bill we will have to tear down, burn to ashes, and rebuild from. It won’t be easy, but we’ll do it, and they are giving us the opportunity to rebuild even bigger and better. They’re doing the demo so we can renovate this nation from the basement up.

Tomorrow, I’ll do what I do every July 4th, I will watch John and Abby and the greatest actor to ever play George Washington in the history of great George Washington actors fight to build a country from nothing, side by side with people the vehemently disagree with on some of the most important issues in history, against a mad King and an Empire that believed that God had ordained them to rule over savages everywhere, with nothing but rags on their feet and horse meat in their bellies, and I will remember that nothing is impossible, that this is a nation of fighters, that we built the most powerful country in the world in just 200 years with stubbornness and grit and a lot of people who absolutely could not stand each other but made it work anyways and they didn’t even have Sephora or easy access to inexpensive wine so if they could build this nation once, we can rebuild it again. And we will, or die trying.

Oh yeah, and for all of those people fleeing the country at our time of need- good riddance. Don’t come back when we’re better than ever. America doesn’t need any fair weather fans.

Choose the Bear

I cannot imagine a better guest in a week in which we are talking about resilience and grit than the wonderful Adrienne Spires. Adrienne’s new book Roaring Resilience: Finding Grit in the Lion's Den is about her journey rescuing herself and her children from domestic abuse, building a new life, and using her experience to change the lives of others. We had a great conversation, I learned a lot, and I highly recommend both the book and the episode for anyone who needs to remember that a better life is always possible.

July 4th Viewing

Obviously HBO’s masterpiece John Adams is my top recommendation but if for some reason you don’t want to spend the entire day watching the Founding Fathers here are some other options:

Forrest Gump

Independence Day

Born on the 4th of July

The West Wing

Hamilton

Lincoln

Jaws

Glory

The Sandlot (the best millennial kids movie, The Goonies can bite me, I will die on this hill)

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington