The Best 4th Of July Was On The Fifth! (Here's Why)
(Post Holiday Op-Ed) Fourth of July speeches tend to divide into two sorts. The predominant variety is celebratory, and prescriptive—solemnized, as John Adams predicted in 1776, “ with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other .” But in his exuberance, Adams failed to anticipate that the Fourth, as it brought Americans together, would continually threaten to tear them apart. As it is currently doing today by-the-way. Over the years, celebrations of the Fourth have become a periodic tug of war between commemorations designed to affirm and even enforce the common identity of Americans— out of many, one —and subversive pushback from those unruly enough to insist that we are not all free, emphatically not all equal, and certainly not one. For further evidence of this just look what this country has experienced as of this first-half of this 2020 year. But by the Declaration’s 50 th a