by Abdul-Hakim Shabazz, Esq.

Every Fourth of July since 1994, I engage in the same ritual. I sit on the porch, light a cigar, and watch my neighbors commit misdemeanors with commercial-grade fireworks. I used to pour myself a scotch to go with it, but my doctors told me I had to cut back, so now I just enjoy a couple pieces of “special chocolate” from Illinois. Just kidding — it’s Michigan. Illinois’ taxes are ridiculous.

And every year, somewhere between the second chocolate and the grand finale that sets off every car alarm on the block, I come to the same conclusion. Despite everything — and folks, there is a lot of “everything” these days — America is still the greatest show on earth.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Abdul, have you seen the news lately? Yes. I write the news. I am contractually obligated to marinate in it daily. I have watched this country argue with itself about everything from tariffs to school boards to whether a hot dog is a sandwich. (It’s not. Don’t email me.) Our politics has become a cage match where everybody loses and somehow everybody also fundraises off of it.

And yet.

This is a country that makes you laugh. Where else can a state political convention produce more plot twists than a 1980s prime-time soap opera? (For the record, I was always more Dynasty than Dallas.) Where else does democracy come with a side of deep-fried Snickers at the State Fair? (I was always partial to those, back when my doctors let me be partial to things.) Our national capacity for the absurd is unmatched, and frankly, I’ve built a career on it.

This is a country that makes you cry. Sometimes from grief — we’ve buried too many, forgiven too little, and left too much undone. But sometimes from the other thing. Watch a naturalization ceremony sometime. Watch 200 people from 60 countries raise their right hands and become Americans on purpose. If your eyes stay dry, check your pulse.

This is a country that makes you question. That’s not a bug; it’s the whole operating system. The Founders built a nation on the radical premise that you could criticize the government without losing your head. I exercise that right professionally, several times a week, with footnotes. And in that same spirit, I will defend to the death the rights of my critics — even though I question their intelligence. That’s the American bargain: you’re free to be wrong at the top of your lungs, and I’m free to point it out.

And this is a country that inspires. Exhibit A: yours truly. Where else could a man “raised” with the Nation of Islam as a backdrop place second in a Republican primary for Mayor of Indianapolis? I am a whiskey-drinking (well, formerly), cigar-smoking, bacon-eating Muslim married to a Baptist, raised on Army bases across Europe by a soldier who got drafted at 18, in 1954 — the same year Brown v. Board came down, three years before Little Rock — by a country that denied him the full rights of a citizen. And he wore its uniform with honor anyway. My father didn’t volunteer to defend an America that hadn’t yet decided to defend him; she came calling, and he answered. He made a career of it, because he believed in what she could become. I came home to a nation that let his son practice law, run my mouth on the radio, and annoy politicians of both parties for three decades. Try pulling that résumé off anywhere else.

Here’s the part we forget while doom-scrolling ourselves into despair: we’ve been through worse. We survived a civil war that killed 600,000 of us. We survived the Depression, two world wars, a pandemic in 1918 and another you may recall more recently. We survived 1968, when it genuinely felt like the wheels were coming off. Every generation is convinced it’s living through the end of the American experiment. Every generation has been wrong.

So this weekend, grill something, hug somebody, and watch the sky light up. Laugh at us. Cry with us. Question everything. Then get back to work, because the show must go on. And for those of you who worry: this too shall pass. It always does.

Happy 250th, America. You don’t look a day over 237.

Abdul-Hakim Shabazz is the editor and publisher of Indy Politics.  He is also an attorney, licensed in Indiana and Illinois.