A Quarter Eagle.

Two hundred and fifty years passed, as of Saturday, from the signing of the Declaration of Independence. If you look back to see what Congress was doing on the fiftieth anniversary in 1826, well, they weren’t in session. They adjourned back in May. You can find President John Quincy Adams’ state of the union message from December of that year, where he mentions both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had died on that anniversary some five months before.

But if you skip ahead to 100 years ago, to the 69th Congress, well, they adjourned again! But this time the day before. We can see what they did on 3 July of that year. It includes talk about modifying or repealing the 18th Amendment or changing the Volstead Act—the country was still trying its hand at prohibition in its 150th year.

And this year in the 119th, I assume, Congress will take itself a break. Which is fine. The repub majorities can’t possibly keep up their level of make-believe without a break here and there. They’ve done what they wanted already, with the increases to the debt, the slashing of healthcare, and ignoring the Donald John Trump Crime Family.

But where is America at 250 years? Could be better, could be worse. Mostly stable, but under a continual degradation by poor choices and terrible leadership. The Congress and the president have failed to set a reasonable course on immigration, on climate and energy, on family planning, on regulation. That will change with future elections, including the one this November.

But the celebration is for the Declaration, not for the whole mixed-bag of history or the current mismanagement. We celebrate the promise, the hope. And so we still celebrate in times such as these. We celebrate the values, the ideas, not the sad-sacks or their creaky bones. We celebrate that our system is based on voting, and voting again when we get it wrong, and voting again. Voting regularly, every couple of years, forever.

When in the course of American events, some bell-ends get elected, or are nominated for the courts and confirmed by the Senate, the story does not end there. It continues on to watch them ridiculed by a future that decided not to accept things as they were. I remain convinced that the sun will creep over the crease of the world and we will find our way, even 250 years later. We know what a good world looks like, and we’ve seen plenty of terrible governance of late, so we know what to avoid. It stands to reason we will adapt and go forth to reform and rebuild and improve.

We will see the end of carbon fuels. We will advance the cause of universal healthcare. We will continue to strive for better education, unadulterated by nanny-state repubs’ delusions. We will push for laws and practices that respect labor. Better criminal justice and policing. Better reasoned regulation of corporations.

And we will continue to advance science and technology, trying to find smarter ways of living with nature and each other. That is why the nation was formed.