A Message from America at 250

The United Stares of America will remain a great country so long as we protect and expand our self-determination as Citizens and people.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.“

Yes, I said *expand* our self-determination.

If our government today, and over the past 25-50 years, was truly representative of the People—if it was truly a reflection of self-determination by an educated Citizenry—movements like MAGA would never find the astroturfed-oxygen to breathe, let alone find popular support enough to strangle our collective air supply. But when a country is consumed by fear and anger, isolation and hate, such movements can reemerge.

In my lifetime, I have watched the American government go up for sale: influence and power purchased, political parties corrupted to serve as vehicles for personal enrichment and status. This trend has been happening for some time, slowly at first, then plainly, and now exponentially.

Does *anyone* think American politics or government truly reflects the Citizenry?

American history shows this natural cycle repeating, swinging between eras of great progress and unimaginable darkness.

To deny we are in, or perhaps are still entering, a period of unimaginable darkness in the United States (and around the world) is to deny reality and clear evidence. This darkness, though, is not the result of Donald Trump; it is not the result of MAGA; it is not the result of Vladimir Putin, or Israel, or Muslims, or even Elon Musk and his PayPal Pal Peter Thiel who, in 2009, said plainly: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

The present darkness is the result of a complex and poorly constructed system—now hijacked—that has allowed small handful of ruling-class elites to emerge (or reemerge) and to manipulate information, destroy minds, and sow division. Tech billionaires and trillionaires, along with the usual suspects throughout history (corrupt governments, malicious forces, and evil doers) have gained control of our culture and our eyes, and with it, our minds. This is a most urgent concern.

The only solution to this darkness, given everything I know and have seen, will emanate from the same source of light, that eternal spring of Liberty, found at the center of every great American innovation and triumph. That source, that solution, was described 250 years ago:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Let us Declare, then, that we will not cede our self-determination—our free will, our conscience—to these evil forces, and that we will continue our journey forward, together in solidarity, on a path toward that more perfect union.

Nick Butler
Albany, NY
July 4, 2026