The Fourth of July, America’s Independence Day, is here, and I must admit that I’m not good at performing patriotism. Indeed, I’m critical of many, probably most, expressions of it. It’s hard not to be these days.
After all, when Democratic members of the House of Representatives gather to sing ‘God Bless America’ on the steps of the Capitol, hours after the Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade, all anyone who cares about women’s equality and the human right to bodily autonomy can do is blink in bewilderment at their utter tone-deafness.
Vice called the display “the worst possible version of the band that kept playing as the Titanic sank”. The action was intended as a celebration of the passage of a minimal, bipartisan bill on gun regulation that the major media outlets are hailing – optimistically and arguably hyperbolically – as “the first major federal gun safety legislation” since 1994. But the timing and the optics were terrible.
