Happy b’day USA! At 250, you still smell like teen spirit

PHILADELPHIA – New York’s charismatic young mayor Zohran Mamdani made a special request of his constituents ahead of America’s big birthday weekend.

“It’s hot out there, and the power grid is working overtime to keep us cool. Set your AC (air conditioner) to 78 degrees,” he tweeted on X on July 1.

Temperatures are forecast to soar past 100 deg F (37 deg C) over the next few days in a test of the city’s ageing power systems.

And, apparently, national politics.

Mamdani’s post drew more than 55 million views and lit his feed within minutes. Most commenters mocked the “commie” mayor, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and scorned the idea that he could tell New Yorkers how low to set their thermostats.

“In a first-world country, you could turn on the A/C,” tweeted Republican Senator Ted Cruz, taking a potshot at the Uganda-born mayor of Indian descent.

Soon enough, someone reminded the politician from Texas that his state, too, had put out such public appeals during heatwaves.

It’s business as usual, in other words, in the American public square. At a venerable 250 years of age, the country is bickering like a teenager.

Few will deny that the American experiment has been a staggering success. The break from British rule in 1776 and the founding ideals in the Declaration of Independence – liberty, equality and self-government – birthed a nation of 340 million people that today makes up the world’s largest economy.

Its geopolitical heft remains unparalleled. It has the mightiest of militaries. And although China is snapping at its heels, its technology still leads. Its imprint on popular culture across the world is deep and abiding.

But where is the joy? Americans appear recalcitrant, unwilling to embrace celebration or hope. Some 59 per cent say the country’s best years are already behind it, found a Pew survey in May 2026.

In recent decades, Americans have also grown less trusting of each other and of their government, both of the two dominant political parties, the mainstream media and even colleges and universities.

Consequently, when President Donald Trump addresses a rally in the national capital on July 4, sizeable numbers of Americans are likely to regard him with varying degrees of suspicion, contempt or hostility.

Another parallel effort will offer an alternative to the billionaire president. “America’s Block Party” will be held in Los Angeles on the same day, led by a bipartisan, congressional commission that reportedly developed differences with the White House-run celebrations.

There has been backlash over an unusual UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) spectacle folded into the 250th anniversary celebrations: a mixed martial arts event staged on the White House grounds and timed to coincide with Trump’s 80th birthday on June 14. Supporters hailed it as a high-energy show. Critics said it was undignified.

Likewise, the Great American State Fair. A 16-day expo on the National Mall in Washington, DC, that was meant to feature every state and territory, also ran into controversy. At least seven states declined to participate. Trump claimed that it was “packed with happy people” but media reports said there were hardly any crowds.

The days leading up to the anniversary have been eventful.

A serving US Air Force officer was arrested on July 1 after publicly calling for Trump’s impeachment. Major Jacob Watson, dressed in his military uniform, flouted the law by demonstrating from the steps of the Capitol building. Public dissent within active-duty military ranks is rare.

But betting markets see institutional brinksmanship ahead; Kalshi currently has odds of 64 per cent that Trump will be impeached before January 2028.

The on-edge feel is most palpable at a monument to honour iconic president Abraham Lincoln. A three-time Olympian canoeist was indicted on July 2 for allegedly vandalising the newly refurbished Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

The pool – coated with a colour that Trump described as “American flag blue” – had turned a murky green from a sudden algae bloom that Trump said was caused by fertilisers being dumped into it. Its renovation, costing millions, is part of Trump’s mission to beautify the capital and the President seemed to view the discolouration and damage as a personal affront. National Guard members and US Park Police have been patrolling the site round the clock in the lead-up to July 4.

The success of 250 years notwithstanding, it is obvious to the casual onlooker, as much as the pundit, that something is missing. It can be described as a lack of cohesion, a shared vision of the mountain to scale, even if the paths to reach it are varied.

Nothing new there, historians would say, it has been that way for 2½ centuries.

Generations of conservatives and liberals have argued that the government was too intrusive, too weak, immoral or inefficient.

Arguments crescendoed into protests in the 1960s when civil rights movements demanded desegregation and in the early 19th century when suffragists raged to win the right to vote for women. The most serious rupture resulted in a four-year civil war, sparked off in 1861 by the secession of 11 southern states in opposition to Lincoln’s decision to abolish slavery.

But the country has mostly been marching onwards. When The Straits Times was born in 1845, the US was still expanding. Texas was annexed and admitted to the union as the 28th state that year.

It was also growing beyond its shores, ratifying the Treaty of Wangxia which gave American merchants trading privileges in Chinese treaty ports. The unequal treaty, which the Chinese would come to regard as part of the “century of humiliation”, allowed the US to claw into a realm dominated by the British. It contributes to the narrative that shapes how China interprets its contest with the US today.

The US Naval School, later named the Naval Academy, opened in Annapolis in the same year. And some 167 years later, a foreign midshipman topped the class for the first time: Singaporean Navy Officer Sam Tan Wei Shen.

Is America evolving or devolving, my editors like to quiz me. Americans ask the same question. Upon inauguration, Trump declared his second term to be the golden age of America. Is it?

Is he dead wrong? Or is he merely selling his presidency?

Data shows a K-shaped economy. Trump himself made around US$2 billion (S$2.6 billion) in the first year of his second term. For the ordinary American, wages are rising but not fast enough to cover the higher cost of living and expensive housing.

Only a third feel that the American Dream – the belief that if you work hard, you’ll get ahead – still holds true today, polling over the last few years has found.

The median age of first-time US homebuyers is 40. Women working full-time earn about 80.9 cents for every dollar earned by men. The top 1 per cent of Americans hold about 31 per cent of household wealth, the highest share on record since the Fed began tracking in 1989.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed into law on July 4, 2025, includes cuts of almost US$1 trillion over the next 10 years to Medicaid, the scheme which provides health insurance to low-income populations. This may result in 11.8 million Americans losing their health coverage.

Federal debt has soared past US$39 trillion as a result of decades of budget deficits. This year, the government is projected to spend about US$7.4 trillion while collecting only US$5.6 trillion in revenue.

But perhaps the most corrosive to social cohesion is the idea of judging Americans by pedigree. Floating around is the notion of “heritage Americans” whose ancestors fought in the American Revolution or Civil War. Vice-President J.D. Vance, who says that America is “a particular place, with a particular people”, is a proponent.

The idea of ancestry-based citizenship clashes with the principle that American identity comes from laws, allegiance and shared civic values rather than bloodline.

For the first time in at least 50 years, there is net negative migration into the US, something the White House has counted as a victory.

What about the next 50? Will there be another American century?

Meritocracy still animates the nation, there is still the American instinct to buck convention and authority, the relentless drive to innovate.

Just this week, a researcher at the University of Minnesota led a project that created magic from inorganic chemicals – cells that can feed, fight for their food and reproduce, exhibiting behaviour associated with life.

A moment like that is a licence to indulge in optimism. What unknown unknown product, concept or principle could come next from the land that’s birthed iPhones, Facebook, ChatGPT?

But the future is being invented in China too. Just this week, a made-in-China match for Anthropic’s closely guarded frontier model Mythos was launched by Beijing-based Z.ai. What’s more, it’s open-source and free. It’s the US that has been on the defensive, building a Great Wall around its tech.

It is a hint that another American century is by no means a certainty. Uncle Sam will have to compromise, compete and share influence with China, India and perhaps a more assertive Europe. It could remain the first among equals in a fragmented world.

Happy 250th, USA! Wish you many, many more.