By
Benjamin Hart,
staff editor at Intelligencer who joined New York in 2017
Feel the excitement.
America’s 250th birthday party is here at last. It’s a strange moment to be valorizing the United States, and the general mood of pessimism pervading the country seems reflected in the haphazard celebrations — at least those involving President Trump, who has inserted himself into many of the proceedings. America’s major birthdays weren’t always like this, of course. To get a sense of how the Semiquincentennial differs from celebrations past — specifically, the Bicentennial 50 years ago — and how someone who knows our country’s past is feeling about its present, I spoke with Douglas Brinkley. The renowned presidential historian and Rice University professor has written many popular histories, including The Great Deluge, Cronkite, and Silent Spring Generation.
