🇺🇸🎂🥳“America’s 250th” Edition

Jul 04, 2026

Welcome to the delightfully irreverent, special America 250 edition of Counterpoint, commemorating two and a half centuries of life, liberty, and the pursuit of whatever constitutional crisis we’re currently having.

This week, the Supreme Court reminded presidents that they can’t simply rewrite the 14th Amendment by executive order—though it continued its recent tradition of expanding presidential power in other areas, proving that constitutional law is nothing if not a rich source of plot twists. Donald Trump continued defending his algae-infested, $14 million “American flag blue” Reflecting Pool while insisting vandals—not physics, biology, or project management—were to blame. Congress spent another week proving that the greatest obstacle to the Republican agenda is frequently Republicans.

Still, America has survived a civil war, a Great Depression, world wars, Watergate, disco, New Coke, and whatever it is we’re calling the last decade. If history teaches us anything, it’s that this country has an extraordinary ability to endure the people temporarily placed in charge of it.

Happy 250th birthday, America. May your next 250 years feature fewer algae blooms, fewer executive orders attempting to amend the Constitution, and at least one week in which reality doesn’t feel like it was written by a committee of exhausted political satirists.