Declaration of Indifference

Why the ambivalence about the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence?

Madison, GA

May 24, 2026

Fifty years ago, the Bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence was a big deal. The celebration sparked a patriotic wave that saturated the culture.

Flags waved, bunting was everywhere, commemorative quarters were issued, and pop culture embraced the event. The theme of independence infused everything. As it often did in those days, Coca-Cola captured the mood:

As we approach the 250th anniversary, the occasion has been much more subdued. Many seem unaware it’s happening. Some are almost hostile, as if the Declaration of Independence shouldn’t be celebrated.

Millions have no idea who wrote it, or why. Since Lincoln, most have emphasized the “self-evident” truths of the second paragraph. It’s a beautiful sentiment that’s almost always (often intentionally) misinterpreted.

When the Declaration was written, what mattered most wasn’t the elevated overture, but the closing crescendo: the salvo affirming independence, after the list of grievances that justified the divorce.

Civil, Peaceful, and Humane

Contrary to conventional platitudes, the Declaration didn’t “found a new nation”. It asserted the sovereignty and secession of thirteen countries, and proclaimed their “separate and equal station”… “among the powers of the earth”.

Great Britain later agreed, by “treating with them” in the Treaty of Paris as “free sovereign and Independent States”. The states that signed the Declaration became their own countries, like France, Spain, or Sweden. That’s why they were called “states”.

The Constitution later created a confederation, not a “nation”. It didn’t reconfigure the states into a consolidated blob. The state ratifying conventions would’ve rejected the Constitution had they known it would produce the “United State” we have today, and Constitution’s advocates assured them such fear was unwarranted.

It wasn’t.

In the early years, states still remembered what the Declaration meant. They guarded their sovereignty and were willing to assert it.

At the Hartford Convention of 1814, the New England states considered seceding. Few denied their right to do so, or would’ve used force to stop them. That would’ve seemed preposterous to a people whose fathers left Britain less than forty years earlier.

During the Missouri Crisis at end of that decade, some Southern states threatened to leave the union if Missouri weren’t admitted as a state; several Northern ones said they’d go if it was. Almost no one wanted leave, but not many thought secession would precipitate a war.

Why should it? It simply means going separate ways. Few acts are more civil, peaceable, and humane.

If secession is illicit, the Declaration of Independence… the most prominent secession document in world history… shouldn’t be celebrated; it should be denounced.

The Main Problem

But if misunderstanding the Declaration explains some of the indifference toward its semi-quincentennial, it’s not the main problem.

It’s not like most people in 1976 were devoted Jeffersonians who considered the Bicentennial a celebration of secession. Like today, few thought of it that way. Americans just knew they loved the country, and wanted to honor it.

Now many of them aren’t so sure… some for political reasons, others because of historical ignorance, cultural illiteracy, or societal grudges. Others may be reluctant to cheer the upcoming anniversary for fear receiving “racist” aspersions.

A few decades ago, demographic grievances were subsiding. But in recent years, they were revived and orchestrated (and new ones invented) to pit Americans against each other. Many believe the Declaration doesn’t matter because they’ve been told it doesn’t apply to them.

Up for Grabs

In 1976, the founders were almost universally admired. Washington and Jefferson were unambiguous heroes. But in subsequent decades, they’ve been “contextualized” into theiving genocidal bigots half the country has been trained to hate.

By definition, any place Thomas Jefferson or George Washington isn’t welcome isn’t America. That now includes certain government buildings, college campuses, and public squares. Across the US several years ago, their statues were toppled, plaques removed, and names effaced.

No wonder there’s ambivalence about the Declaration. It’s almost like that’s the intent!

Half a century ago, in the midst and wake of Vietnam, urban riots, stagflation, and Watergate, tumult was rampant and political differences ran deep. But most Americans still claimed to cling to Jefferson’s observation that “every difference of opinion isn’t a difference of principle”.

Now they barely bother with the pretense. These days, principles are the basis of disagreement. It’s not that disputants have competing proposals to get to a place we all agree we need to go. They want to go entirely different directions.

The very meaning of America is up for grabs: Maybe this place isn’t so great… and never was.

To Have a Country

There are many reasons for this disillusion. Smartphones and social media algorithms have helped shatter society into isolated shards. Fifty years of fiat money has distorted the economy and warped the culture, stunting time preference, undermining trust, and pitting those who receive first infusions of cash from those who must subsist on the crumbs.

These major disruptions would’ve been significant at any time. But they’re stirring a demographic stew that’s nothing like it was five decades ago.

The immigrant floodgates had re-opened only ten years before the Bicentennial, so most Americans were still descended from families that had been here several generations.

They’d imbibed a shared history, common culture, and unifying traditions… which is what it means to have a country. The coalescence of communal myths (many which are true) is essential to formation and sustenance of a cohesive society. In 1976, the United States still had one.

Of about 220M Americans in the mid-70s, almost 90% were of European descent, with blacks comprising most of the rest. Less than 5% of the population was born overseas. Christians comprised 90% of the country. About 60% were Protestant and almost a quarter were Catholic.

Whites are now less than 60% of the population, with this decade featuring the first sustained numerical (not just proportional) decline in American history. The black population has inched up a couple percentage points, to about 14%.

Hispanics rose from under 5% to about 20% of Americans, with Asians rising to 6% from under 1%. Almost 15% of today’s Americans were born overseas. Tens of millions of foreigners are here illegally, so the actual percentage of whites and blacks is lower than official data suggests.

Only 60% of Americans now call themselves Christian, with about 40% being Protestant. Catholics fell from ~25% to around 20%; Muslims and Hindus are about 6%. But almost 30% are “unaffiliated” (up from ~5% in 1976), or claim no religious belief.

Papayas in Oslo

This clearly isn’t the same country as it was in 1976. But not in the way America changed between 1926 and 1976. Or even from 1876 to 1976. New tendencies, evolving styles, and technological advances are inevitable (and healthy) in any society.

Organic changes in sensibility and technology affect what people do, the way they do it, and how they treat each other. But they don’t abruptly alter who they are.

During the half century till 1976, immigration and naturalization rates were (by law) relatively low… and almost entirely from Europe. Since the Bicentennial, the source has shifted and the pace picked up.

Fewer than 150,000 people were naturalized annually in the 1970s. The rate is seven times higher this decade, and the composition is completely different from the Ellis Island influx.

Migrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Eastern Europe often clashed with the original English stock (and each other), but they at least shared a Western heritage that’s alien to many recent arrivals. And closing the gates for forty years allowed exposure and experience to meld ethnic animosities into a more amicable America.

The flood of recent entries comes mostly from Mexico, India, China, the Philippines, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, El Salvador, Korea, and Guatemala. The UK is the top European source of US immigrants, but about fifteen countries rank ahead of it.

And this excludes tens of millions of illegal aliens and legal residents who aren’t citizens, each of whom amplifies the extent to which America has changed in such a short time. How many of them have a Jeffersonian pedigree?

After a couple generations, their descendants might. But that takes time. For some (not all) people from certain cultures, there may never be enough. Planting papayas in Oslo is unlikely to ever bear Norwegian fruit.

Common Sense

This isn’t a criticism of immigrants who don’t instinctively grasp the philosophical and cultural traditions of the communities they enter. How would they?

I couldn’t expect to move to Munich and become Bavarian or suddenly be a Sikh because I settled in the Punjab. Why would anyone think someone plopped into Minneapolis from Mogadishu would be an instant Minnesotan?

New immigrants don’t quickly absorb local interests, knowledge, rivalries, or grievances simply because they were hired, bought a house, or got a driver’s license in a certain state… especially (like most recent arrivals) if they came from cultures incompatible with (or antithetical to) Western Civilization. That’s why periodic pauses are needed to let them do so.

To Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence was “an expression of the American mind” that voiced "the common sense of the subject". But if an “American mind” no longer exists, there’s unlikely to be a “common” sense (or shared enthusiasm) of any subject.

Especially the ones that matter the most.

JD