Monday Morning Politics: America 250

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Well, the country's 250th birthday party is over. How are you actually feeling? How are you actually feeling? As you thought about the United States of America on Saturday, while you were whatever, barbecuing or at the beach or watching fireworks or whatever you were doing. We hope to have very constructive dialogues here in a series we'll call America 251, because for all the competing views of history and the present, as the big round number anniversary was approaching, Saturday was not the end of history, right? Our complicated times in this country continue. So let's start year 251 by playing some clips of President Donald Trump and Mayor Zeron Mamdani's July 3rd speeches. Also, a clip from Princeton Professor Eddie Glaude and an Andrew Cuomo clip from when he was governor that might very much surprise you. And just invite you to call or text with what Saturday felt like inside, emotionally, for you when you thought about the big day. Which of these three groups, we'll try to do it this way.
And maybe this will work, maybe this will help you focus your thoughts and feelings. Which of these three groups would you put yourself in? And we'll try to get a few from each group on the air. It's not a contest. We're going to manage the phones for this diversity and hope to get a range of views that somehow, you know, reflect many different people in the community. So were you feeling lovingly patriotic, ambivalent, it's complicated, or this country is mostly bad to its residents and to the world?
212-433-WNYC, call or text 212-433-9692.
Again, which of these three most closely describes what you were feeling on Saturday, the 4th of July, the country's 250th birthday? Lovingly patriotic, that's sparking your heart to go pitter-patter right now, call him. Ambivalent, it's complicated, does that sound like you? Or, you know, this country is mostly bad to its residents and to the world. That was your dominant emotion.
212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text. Or maybe you want to say none of the above and state your own category, that's okay too. But for most of you, which of these three most closely describes what you were feeling on Saturday, the 4th of July, the country's 250th birthday? Lovingly patriotic, ambivalent, it's complicated, or this country is, let's face it, mostly bad to its residents and to the world. Call or text 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.
Again, if we bump you, it's not because we're censoring your point of view. We're going to try to get a diversity of these opinions on the phones and in our texts to have the kind of dialogue that in a way, the country was having or a lot of Americans were having by ourselves, by ourselves in our heads, right? Now, as you're beginning to call or text and to help set this up, we've pulled a few clips that maybe represent the range, mostly from the Trump and Mamdani July 3rd speeches. Also one from Princeton Professor Eddie Glaude and an Andrew Cuomo clip from when he was a governor that, as I said, might surprise you. So here we go. I'm going to start with the Eddie Glaude clip in which he does not sugarcoat his feelings. This is from June 15th on PBS as the Princeton historian and professor was discussing his new book, America, USA, How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries. Obviously, that was published in the context of the big anniversary now. The context here further is that he opens the book, first words in the book, opens the book with the words, I do not love America and never have. I do not love America and never have. He explains why he started that way.

**Eddie Glaude** (4:33)
I wanted to differentiate myself from James Baldwin. I'm starting from a different place. Baldwin begins with his love of country and says, from there, I can criticize the country perpetually. I want to begin with wound.
So I'm really asking the question, how can you expect me to love the country, given the reality of my experience and the experience of race in the country?

**Brian Lehrer** (4:56)
I do not love America and never have. How do you expect me to love the country given the reality of my experience and the experience of race in the country, Eddie Glaude?
So listeners, if you identify with that, call in or text, and you'd be part of the group that was feeling pretty bad about this country, interior, your interior life on Saturday, July 4th. That clip was quite a contrast with President Trump, no surprise, who basically said in his July 3rd Mount Rushmore speech that loving the United States is mandatory, especially if you're an immigrant.