An Independence Day Letter to a Country I No Longer Recognize
How proud are you to be an American today?
This Fourth of July, millions of Americans will eat their hot dogs, watch their fireworks, and wave their little flags like nothing is wrong. They’ll call it Independence Day. But what are we celebrating, exactly? Freedom? Justice? Mercy? Those words are hollow when spoken with mouths full of apathy and cruelty. The anthem plays, the sky explodes in red, white, and blue—and beneath it all, we have become a nation that jails children, turns away the desperate, and calls it “order.” It’s not a celebration. It’s a lie dressed up in bunting. And the most shameful part? MAGA knows it’s a lie. And they cheer anyway.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) has passed. The headlines frame it as a tool for “border enforcement” or “immigration control,” as if those phrases weren’t already euphemisms for human suffering in a nation obsessed with punishment. But let’s be absolutely clear: OBBBA is not a bill about order. It’s not about safety. It’s not even about America. It’s about fear, power, and pain. And MAGA celebrates.
The OBBBA grants the president sweeping powers to effectively shut down asylum at the border by fiat. No more due process. No more legal channels. No more weary families reaching the end of a 2,000-mile march to claim refuge under the international standards we once helped write. Under this new law, the President can declare a “border emergency” and immediately block nearly all asylum claims. Not with evidence, not with oversight, but with fear and political theater. And MAGA doesn’t care.
Let’s say that again: with the stroke of a pen, the president can end the right to asylum for people fleeing murder, rape, political oppression, war, and cartel violence. The cruelty is the point. And MAGA cheers.
America now codifies the power to turn away the tired, the poor, the huddled masses so long as the president’s poll numbers demand it. It is the death knell of the poem on the Statue of Liberty. It is the formal divorce between the United States and the values it claims to stand for. And MAGA doesn’t mourn it, they applaud.
We’re not talking about “illegals” storming the gates. We’re talking about people who followed the law, who presented themselves at the border to claim asylum, as is their internationally recognized right. But under OBBBA, they can be denied on sight. No interview. No court. No humanity. And MAGA grins.
And if you dare speak up for these people, if you dare say “wait, this doesn’t seem right,” you’ll be labeled a traitor, a globalist, a socialist, a pawn of George Soros, or worse. Because the MAGA movement (read: cult) does not traffic in compassion or logic. It feeds off division. It thrives on dehumanization. It doesn’t want solutions. It wants enemies. And Trump delivers. Not with competence or vision, but with viciousness. He doesn’t build; he breaks. He doesn’t fix; he flames. He doesn’t create; he crushes. And his followers? They get high on the ashes.
What has Trump built? A wall that collapsed in the wind? A movement that’s now little more than a grievance cult in red hats? He hasn’t offered a single vision of hope, only endless reruns of paranoia and payback. He tears down institutions, bulldozes norms, and replaces it all with a sneer. And MAGA loves him for it. Because destruction, to them, feels like strength.
But it isn’t strength to deny children water in the desert while the President boasts about his preferred shower pressure. It isn’t strength to cage families or deport veterans. It’s weakness—moral rot pierced with flag pins amid Fox News soundbites. And OBBBA is that rot made law.
This law doesn’t make America stronger. It makes us colder, crueler, and more detached from the principles that once made us proud. It’s not even a border policy—it’s a cruelty policy. It’s not a security measure—it’s shrink-wrapped xenophobia. And MAGA doesn’t just look away—they raise a toast.
We have money for razor wire, but not for clean water in Jackson, Mississippi. We’ll pay for more detention centers, but won’t fund housing for homeless veterans. We militarize the border, but shrug as schools crumble and healthcare deserts grow. And MAGA shouts, “America First!”
This isn’t America First. This is humanity last.
If you’re not alarmed yet, ask yourself: what happens the next time a president decides that another group is “too much”? What if it’s trans kids? Journalists? Protesters? Democrats? When you give one man the power to override compassion with convenience, the floodgates don’t just close at the border, they slam shut on democracy itself.
Trump is not a builder. He’s a wrecking ball with a Truth Social account and a golf cart and a sneer. He’s not leading a country. He’s leading a demolition crew. And OBBBA? It’s just the latest weapon they’ve decided to deploy while laughing at the cries of its victims. And MAGA doesn’t care.
This bill, this law, is not just a legal document: it’s a mirror. It reflects back who we are as a country right now.Beyond our borders, the world watches in horror at the third-world dystopia we’re choosing to become. The Republican Party is now referred to in Europe as the American Fascist Party. And any one of us who allows even the slightest empathy for a victim, raises the briefest of concerns for what is right versus what is convenient, and feels the ever-lessening pride in being an American, well, we are put into the Then You Can Move Out category.
MAGA does not understand what patriotism means. They want a bully in charge so they can stop feeling weak and get their rocks off pretending to be tough. They don’t want a leader, they want a bouncer. They demand permission to hate, and they have continually received it from their King.
For the rest of my life—and likely the bulk of my children’s—this will be a country I no longer recognize. And I mourn that more deeply than words can hold. It would take decades to undo the terror and destruction Trump has already caused in six short months.
Trump is a corrupt and awful human being but this is so much bigger than he would ever admit. Trump doesn’t matter. It is the mob around him, the destruction and cruelty that is now policy – that is what really matters here.
That is what crushes the spirit of those of us who once believed this country could be a positive in the world, that its citizens were much closer to good than not.
That is what makes the flag feel like a lie.
But I still believe in something deeper. I believe in the worth of a human being- any human being -more than I believe in borders, songs, or symbols. I believe in dignity before I believe in allegiance. And while I used to think being American meant being humane, I’ve now learned they are not the same. If I have to choose, I choose being humane.
Patriotism without compassion is just nationalism in cheap gold spray paint. If pride in being American now requires silence in the face of cruelty, then I am no longer proud.
Because before I am American, I am human. And I will not trade one for the other.
And if that disqualifies me from being a patriot in their America, then so be it.
I’ll stand with the humans.