America Is 250. We Haven’t Even Started Dreaming.

On July 4, 2026, the United States of America turned 250 years old. I keep saying that sentence out loud because it still kind of amazes me. Two hundred and fifty years since a bunch of farmers, lawyers, merchants and preachers signed their names to a piece of paper that could have gotten them all hanged.

If you didn’t get a chance to dig into the history this year, the National Archives’ Freedom 250 (opens in a new tab) and America250 (opens in a new tab) have been putting out great material. Go poke around. It’s worth your time.

But I want to talk about something bigger than one birthday party.

We’re a young country

People talk about America like it’s an old empire on its last legs. That’s silly. There are churches in Europe older than our whole nation. In the long run of history, 250 years is a running start.

Think about what we’ve done in that time. We won our independence from the most powerful empire on earth. We ended slavery, at a terrible cost, because the words of the Declaration kept convicting us until we lived up to them. We turned a wilderness into the most productive economy the world has ever seen. We helped defeat fascism and outlasted communism. We put men on the moon and brought them home.

That’s not the résumé of a country that’s finished. That’s the résumé of a country that’s just warming up.

A line I keep coming back to

In his 2019 State of the Union (opens in a new tab), President Trump said something that has stuck with me ever since: “Our most thrilling achievements are still ahead. Our most exciting journeys still await. Our biggest victories are still to come. We have not yet begun to dream.”

I love that, because it’s the exact opposite of the mood a lot of elites have been selling for years. They wanted us to manage decline. Make peace with the plants closing. Accept that our best days were in black-and-white photos.

No thanks. I’m with the guy who says we haven’t begun to dream.

What the next 250 could look like

Let me dream a little, out loud. I see American-built reactors powering American-built plants. I see shipyards humming again. I see small towns that got hollowed out filling back up with young families because there’s finally good work nearby. I see more kids in church, more babies in strollers, and more flags on porches.

None of that is guaranteed. Freedom never is. Every generation has to choose it again. But I look at this country and I see more reasons for hope than I have in a long time.

How we keep it

You probably know the famous line. A convention delegate named James McHenry wrote in his journal that a lady — the Library of Congress (opens in a new tab) identifies her as Elizabeth Willing Powel of Philadelphia — asked Benjamin Franklin what the convention had produced. McHenry recorded the answer: “A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.”

If you can keep it. Keeping the republic is our job. It means voting, raising our kids to love this place, telling the true story of where we came from, and building things worth leaving behind.

Happy 250th, America. I can’t wait to see what you do next.

Sources

• National Archives, Freedom 250 (opens in a new tab)
• America250 (opens in a new tab)
• President Trump, State of the Union, February 5, 2019 (Trump White House archives) (opens in a new tab)
• Library of Congress, on the James McHenry journal and “a republic if you can keep it” (opens in a new tab)