America has always, in every single year that it has existed, been great and done great things.

And America has always, in every single year it existed, been awful and done horrible things

in the sense that, you know, our government reflects people and people are going to people.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Focus Group podcast.

I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the bulwark, and this week, it's Fourth of July.

But it's not just any Fourth of July.

It's America's 250th anniversary.

In a normal time, that would be a great unifier and could help bring people

together around some of our lofty national ideals. But it's no secret that the Trump years

have complicated a lot of people's relationship with patriotism. And some polling, like a recent

Fox poll, showed that 27% of Democrats considered themselves

proud of the country compared to 83% of Republicans.

But at the same time, 61% of Democrats considered themselves extremely or very patriotic.

Gallup also found recently that a record low, 58% of U.S. adults say they are

extremely or very proud to be an American. The number for Democrats has basically fallen off a

cliff during both Trump terms. So we're setting out to explore the complicated feelings people,

particularly Democrats, are having about America

during the Trump years. So if you're having a tough time, I hope you come out of this discussion,

feeling seen, as my friends and the Democratic Party say. My guest today is pretty good at staying

hopeful. Heather Cox Richardson, author of Letters from an American on Substack. It is one of my favorite substacks. Heather, thanks for being here. Such a pleasure to be here, my friend. It's so fun when you're here. I had a question. I was looking back at when the bicentennial was, and I missed it by just a smidge, but you might have been like 10, eight? I don't know. I don't want to, I don't want to do it, but do you remember the bicentennial? Truthfully, I can't do the math myself. I was born in 62, and that was 76, so I would have been 13. Okay, so 13. So do you remember it? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So remember, I was, when I was young, I lived in, in quite a rural area. So we didn't do the big, you know, we saw the tall ships, but only online. Although I have an interesting tallship story for you if you're interested. But we certainly were paying attention to what was going on around the country. I had been paying a close attention to Watergate,

even as a young kid. So I was very conflicted about how to approach 76. But, you know,

there were the reenactors, which were interesting themselves. There were the focus on the

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