What has made America great is not the chauvinistic nativist ideology that grips this administration, but its very opposite. It is the spirit best captured in the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!"

cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

(Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus”)

I wish you a somber Fourth of July!