In case you thought America’s 250th birthday might pass without a mandatory guilt lecture from cable news, think again.
Enter Ali Velshi of MS NOW, who’s apparently looking at the nation’s milestone anniversary the way most people look at a dentist appointment they can’t cancel: with “deep unease.”
While normal Americans are, you know, planning cookouts, fireworks, and maybe a patriotic toast to the most successful constitutional experiment in modern history, Velshi is bracing for what he frames as a national therapy session about America’s “unresolved racial politics.”
Because of course he is.
Watch:
As he told viewers, anniversaries apparently aren’t for celebration so much as they are for editorialized introspection: “Anniversaries are imperfect records of the thing which is being celebrated. In America’s case, anniversaries often gloss over the racial dynamics underlying much of America’s history and politics, issues that remain unsolved, because America has never actually fully reckoned with its racist past and its original founding sin of slavery,” Velshi explained.
And just in case anyone missed the tone, he doubled down on the gloom ahead of the upcoming 250th anniversary: “In one month, America will mark the 250th anniversary of its founding. Like previous anniversaries, there is a deep unease about this. I feel a deep unease about the celebrations to which I am invited to mark the 250th anniversary of our so-called democracy, because this 250th anniversary is taking place during yet another period of deep and fundamental and existential unrest in this country, brought on by the country’s unresolved racial politics.”
That’s quite the birthday card.
Rather than leaning into the idea that a nation can celebrate its founding principles while still debating its flaws—as most functioning countries do—Velshi pivots straight into a familiar progressive checklist of grievances: voting rights, redistricting, and the claim that American democracy is perpetually one step away from collapse.
He argues: “Women and black Americans have seen their rights taken away. The Voting Rights Act has effectively been gutted. A number of states are continuing to gerrymander their congressional maps ahead of the midterm elections, with the explicit effect of taking away political power from black Americans. Louisiana did exactly that. Just a few days ago, it passed a new map that eliminated black majority districts.”
And just in case viewers weren’t sufficiently emotionally weighted down, he wraps it up with a comforting message of shared melancholy: “If you’ve got conflicting feelings about America’s upcoming anniversary, like you want to celebrate the ideals that America strives for, which are noble and should be celebrated, but lament the state of the country. You’re not alone. At least I’m with you on this,” he added.
Translation: feel free to celebrate… but also don’t forget to feel bad about it.
At some point, you almost have to admire the consistency. No matter the occasion—Independence Day, Thanksgiving, or apparently now the nation’s 250th birthday—the instinct in certain media circles is the same: locate the nearest cloud, stand under it, and insist the sun is problematic.
Meanwhile, most Americans will likely skip the lecture and stick with the fireworks.
