Happy birthday, America. It’s my second-favorite holiday, after Thanksgiving. Both American. Both centered on a unique, beautiful, and painfully imperfect story. I adore unique, beautiful, painfully imperfect stories. The honest kind.

As a kid, I was mesmerized by the danger of the fireworks. As a man, I’ve stood in contemplated awe on July 4, from the hills of Appalachia to faraway old cities on the borderlands of war. The wildness of this day—the sound, the spectacle, the spirit—has always felt like America at its most mythic.

This year? This birthday feels heavier, the heaviest I’ve felt.

That pain—it’s American, too. It’s the sting of promises unfulfilled. The ache of reading the Declaration of Independence and realizing how relevant, how revolutionary, how unfinished it is. It’s grief in watching this grand idea—the best concept in modern history—butchered by weak people who dare to consider themselves our “leaders.” Petty. Vindictive. Power-hungry. Unworthy of the sacrifice they inherited.

Yet—the beauty remains. The beauty is there in the bones.

We hold these truths to be self-evident…

We hold this pain.
We hold this beauty.
We hold this hope.
We hold this country.

Franklin’s famous line from eleven blood-soaked years after the Declaration echoes louder than ever. Our nation was “a republic, if you can keep it.” The “you” in that sentence isn’t passive. It does the heavy lifting. It demands effort, sacrifice, discernment. It means you fight through the pain. You carry the torch forward.

Both the right and the left have gotten intoxicated on the pain. They obsess over what’s broken and overlook the beauty. The brilliance of the idea of America is not its perfection. It’s that tension. Its demand that we grow. Its hunger for better. A more perfect union.

Read the Declaration today out loud, in its defiant tone. Let it hit you like it hit Lincoln. Like it infuriated Douglass and King. Like it inspired Mandela. Like it empowered Stanton. How amazing that both the left and right have grasped onto its themes. There is no other document like it. None.

It is our scripture and our mirror.

America’s discontent isn’t a bug—it’s a feature. Our unruliness, our protest, our imperfection—they are the heartbeat of the American idea.

Light the fireworks. Grieve your pain. And recommit yourself to the work of beauty.

Happy birthday, America. May there be many more.