After 250 years, many Americans are disillusioned with their country due to its broken political and legal systems…

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America just hit the big 250. For millions, a milestone that should feel like a glorious victory lap instead feels like checking your account balance after a bad weekend in Vegas. The mood is far from patriotic. Fewer Americans are proud of their country than at any time in the last 25 years, and the reasons are obvious to anyone who has been paying attention.

Historically, the country’s bureaucracy and legal systems functioned as the padded walls keeping collective delusions contained. Those days, however, appear to be long gone. Congress currently enjoys a public approval rating that hovers somewhere between head lice and used-car salesmen. Laws are no longer drafted to help citizens, but written by donors, for donors, wrapped in legalese so dense it functions like malicious software code, engineered explicitly to hide the backdoors and corporate exploits from public view.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court, once sold as the nation’s impartial referee, has shed any remaining pretense of neutrality. A majority of Americans now view it unfavorably, and the court itself has done much to earn that skepticism. It increasingly resembles an in-house corporate legal department, rewriting the rules to suit those already holding power.

When the secular temples crumbled, people used to turn to actual temples. But those are largely empty too. The pews are graying. And the local church is more likely to be turned into a trendy artisanal market or a fancy nightclub than to host a Sunday service. As traditional faith retreated, it took the old social safety nets with it — community ties, family networks, and basic neighborly goodwill. In their place, Americans got soaring rent, stagnant wages, and a profound existential loneliness.

Political leadership hasn’t exactly inspired hope either. For years, the White House has looked less like the cockpit of the free world and more like a high-stakes nursing home. We watched President Joe Biden wander through his term like a man who forgot why he walked into the kitchen, projecting all the commanding authority of a melting ice cream cone. Then President Trump stomped back for a sequel many had never requested, treating the Oval Office like a family business and running the country via caps-lock outbursts.

Trump promised to keep America out of new wars, only to authorize military action against Iran that has dragged the country into yet another costly Middle Eastern conflict. The audience is beginning to realize the pilots spend more time fighting over the controls than actually flying the plane.

Predictably, this has destroyed any lingering faith in democracy itself. It wasn’t long ago that a losing candidate would give a dignified, mildly depressing concession speech, lick his wounds and try again in four years. That gentleman’s agreement is dead. Now, losing an election is treated as definitive proof of a deep-state conspiracy, while winning is celebrated as a mandate to crush the opposition. Elections in the U.S. now function less as democratic transfers of power and more like weaponized custody disputes.

Supercharging this collective psychological break is the tech industry, which realized early on that rage drives engagement far better than nuance. The algorithms don’t want us to get along. Peace is bad for profit margins. Instead, citizens are all trapped in bespoke digital echo chambers designed to confirm their worst fears.

Conservatives look out the window and see Marxist radicals hiding behind the hedges. Progressives look out and see fascists operating the lawnmowers. In a masterclass of late-stage capitalism, citizens are voluntarily financing the algorithmic warfare being waged against their own sanity, enriching the tech cartels that profit from collective misery.

To make matters worse, artificial intelligence is about to enter the chat, promising to supercharge a media landscape that was already entirely detached from reality. Soon, the debate will extend from public policy to whether the sky is actually blue or simply an opposition deepfake.

The tragedy is that the vast majority of Americans are still remarkably decent people who just want to pay their bills, grab a beer, and be left alone. But they are trapped inside a malfunctioning simulation engineered to amplify their worst impulses. America suffers less from a lack of honorable citizens than from the structural failure of the institutions meant to serve them. Millions see no reason to celebrate the semiquincentennial. Dismissing this as unpatriotic misses the point. It’s simply the terminal fatigue of a broke and broken population, fed up with being told the patient is healthy while they stare directly at a flatlining heart monitor.

John Mac Ghlionn is a writer and researcher who explores culture, society and the impact of technology on daily life.

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