Democracy Dies in Darkness

David Ignatius

The Washington Post / Opinion / July 2, 2026

A toast to America at 250, glowing and decaying all at once
The country still dazzles the world. But it no longer leads it the way it did.

"Shine, Perishing Republic," wrote the poet Robinson Jeffers in 1925 about a corrupt Roaring Twenties America that he feared was "heavily thickening to empire." We survived that degradation, just as we will the present. But Jeffers's twin sentiments should guide us as we celebrate our 250th birthday: We glow as a nation. But we decay.

If we're honest on this July Fourth, we must admit that the sturdy American men and women who made the revolution are a distant historical memory. Today, we resemble the imperial Britain of 1776 more than the scruffy patriots who rebelled against it. We're a nation with an appalling gap between rich and poor, rather than the republic of farmers and merchants that our Founders envisioned.

At 250, America is a nation in late middle age showing unmistakable signs of decline. Our political system is broken, and our politicians seem unable to solve big social or economic problems. Our education system is broken, and our children's test scores are in continuing decline. Our social cohesion has unraveled so much we often feel like two nations rather than one.

"Corruption never has been compulsory," Jeffers implored. Yet somehow, we've twice elected a president who exuberantly uses power for his own political and financial gain. His republic shines, to be sure, but with gold ornaments strewn across the mantel. His heroes are Gilded Age plutocrats and their mercantilist tariff policies, rather than the rebels who took arms against taxes and tariffs. He posts images of himself as a king even as we mark the rejection of the "abuses and usurpations" of King George III.

And yet, as Jeffers wrote, America retains "a mortal splendor." Beyond the Washington tar pit, Americans remain willing to take risks and fail, and know how to fall and get up again. We're a muscular nation that weirdly seems to grow tougher as it ages. We still invent the best technology, make the best movies, record the best music. We may elect dreadful leaders, but we survive them.

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