I have a chapter in an edited book coming out this week about how structural reform works best in national and localized contexts, rather than internationalist or teleological contexts. Additionally, next year I will have another book chapter about the evolution of early American neutrality in foreign policy. Because of this I feel only a short and informal July 4th thought is necessary for the moment.

I was a kid during the fever pitch of American exceptionalist ideology in the 90s. We were told that America was not so much a place as a global aspiration. A future direction for the world. A mission, in the very religious sense of the term. This idea become so pervasive that its opponents even adopted it, finding all things American to be uniquely evil. The conservative dad vs the rebellious teenager dynamic.

A certain Anglophillic subset of liberals even adopted a strange pro-British Empire world view where the American colonists rebelled to steal land from Natives and keep their slaves (things the British Empire was already doing and would continue to do later elsewhere if under different guises- their abolitionist movement only starting to take off when they no longer had the Carolinas, their land theft never abated until the empire collapsed). The tragic history of European invasions of the Americas were already a done deal however, the demographic balance had already shifted into European triumph as an inevitability by the early 18th Century. It has always been telling to me that affluent white liberals will often gurn about July 4th while Mexican immigrants will set off firecrackers and party all day. They come from places with independence days too, they know what was really at stake.

So the war should really be seen as a struggle within the English speaking world between global empire and global markets based around London versus a unique Western Hemisphere direction for people in North America. This is the same dynamic that would later be replicated in Latin America a few decades down the line. While there are obvious differences between Anglo-Western Hemisphere and Latin-Western Hemisphere, they both chose to divorce themselves from Europe and seek a new path. In this way I regard them as more historically related to each other than any of them are to their once-mother countries. Only Canada stuck with its mother country through today, and that is more from fear of being swamped by its larger and more successful southern neighbor than anything else.

For all of these younger states this was an undeniably good thing. If one is not a specific place with specific interests around that place one is a slave. Be it to an faraway colonial master or to some unrooted ideology.

America is not and never was this thing I was sold it as when I was a child. It is a place that decided to go its own way and do its own thing. First this was political and economic independence from Britain, then it was diplomatic independence from the European alliance system which caused a massive rupture with France whose significance, future publications of mine will make the case, is almost as important as the Revolutionary War itself.

The United States had a bold new and, yes, for its time, revolutionary government. But this was not meant for export nor world-transformation. It was meant for itself. Its first formal relations were with countries like Morocco, where George Washington ensured the government there that while the U.S. wished no kings of its own, it held no hostility towards foreign kings or religions. America was a self-improvement project, not a missionary. Other countries would have to have their own distinct self-improvement projects.

So long as some element of this governing philosophy held sway, the United States was at the forefront of the world in human development and economic growth. But then the worst thing happened, after a score of rivals had self-immolated on their own incompetence, clearing the field for unprecedented American influence, the enlightenment and particularist founding of the nation gave way to its older, darker, pre-revolutionary past. The Puritans returned, and they had a mission not just at home but abroad. In alliance with them, arguably funding them, were the forces of rapacious capital and the military industrial complex. Development would no longer be at home, it would be solely in defense and abroad. Things were no longer to be made locally, but made abroad and purchased to create a global network of independence that was loyal to no place or people but shareholders. The American Republic had become the British Empire after all. And with that change came all the delusions of hubris and dreams of Making the Whole World England/America.

It failed of course, as these things always do. The further empires go from their core base territory the more strained their logistics, the more hostile their neighbors, the less enthusiastic the population for more expansion.

Now the empire the Americans must declare independence from in order to thrive is their own.

Whatever your feelings are on the United States, and mine certainly are complex, it is a real thing as of the time of this writing. A specific place with topography, history, and a civil compact. You can ask someone to invest in a real thing because it is tangible and they interact with it on a regular basis. The same thing does not apply for such intangible and downright mythical concepts such as “The Liberal International Order”, “Western Civilization”, “Christendom”, “The Free World”, “The Global Market”, or “Progressive Society”. None of those things have a specific place really, most of them disavow it in favor of treating the entire Earth as a cosmic battlefield for Platonic ideals.

Perhaps I am the outlier here but I would never ask someone to show loyalty to an abstract concept. Only a place can declare independence from the actors who insist the whole world must be remade around their interests. Only a place can cultivate a nuanced sense of tragedy to help guide a rational path forward.

Happy Fourth.