Vol. 42, No. 08
08/01/2026
Are We Losing Our National Identity?
This July 4, the United States commemorated its semiquincentennial. We marked our nation’s 250th birthday in Washington, D.C., with the largest fireworks display in history, and buried a congressionally mandated time capsule at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, to be opened on the nation’s quincentennial in 2276.
It is indeed an achievement for any country to have survived the past 250 years amid the constant flux of nation-state formation and destruction, imperial expansion since the Napoleonic era, world war devastation, and the spread of communism across the globe. However, the United States now faces unprecedented challenges brought on not just by declining birth rates or open borders. Our own U.S. Supreme Court — nine justices appointed for life with zero accountability to the American people — has redefined what it means to be American.
The June 30 SCOTUS decision in Trump v. Barbara defines citizenship loosely. In a 6-3 ruling, the justices rejected President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to limit birthright citizenship. The Court chose to ignore the purpose of the 14th Amendment, which was to give legal status to freed slaves. It deliberately brushed aside Michigan Republican Senator Jacob Howard, the author of the amendment, who said during congressional debate in 1866 that it wasn’t to be applied to the children of foreigners: “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States.”
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