What to call the upcoming 250th celebrations?
The current regime (Robert Reich argues we shouldn't defile words like "administration," "president" or even "government" to describe these lawless brigands, but "regime" is OK) has found ways to make even "1776" and "250" toxic (taxpayer-funded slush fund for paramilitary thugs? monstrous arch of vanity?), confirming their unworthiness of the history they claim to embody. What can we say worthy of that history?
Although decades of reconstruction await, I think the rest of us will muddle through. I'm heartened by Jill Lepore's wry perspective on the 1976 bicentennial ("by almost any measure, 2026 is a goat rodeo") and Heather Cox Richardson's just-unveiled "250 to 250" project, among other interventions. This history, as Richardson reminds us, is ours.
But what to call the whole thing? The official moniker "semiquincentennial" - half of five hundred - gives me thousand year Reich vibes. A long view of history suggests that two hundred fifty years is a pretty impressive achievement. Most empires don't last that long, let alone longer. Invoking five hundred years sounds grandiose and presumptuous. (Most trees don't live nearly that long, for instance.)
I'll settle for bicenquinquagenary (a term I encountered first at Princeton's 250th in 1996). If that sounds a little wobbly and weird, so much the better. At its best, the United States of America has always been a little loopy and piety-challenging.
