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July 4 is celebrated in the United Sates as Independence Day--the day when the Continental Congress is said to have ratified the Declaration of Independence. In past years I have posted U.S. Independence Day reflections to this site (here. here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here) as a way to commemorate the event and celebrate the holiday.
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American liberal democratic Leninism, like the politics of the United States, is, if anything, a study in contrasts. It is more than that. Those contrast converge around the art, psychology and semiotics of "othering"-- people, religion, ethnicity, race, sex, habits, size, diet, car choices. . . . it doesn't really matter, the "othering" is what matters. There is no shame in othering and it has no affinity to political. social, cultural, ethnic, racial, or other categories form and through which "othering" becomes both sport and politics--with social consequences and Leninist aspirations (in the sense of using othering in the service of identifying what passes in the United States for vanguards of social, religious, political, academic or other forces all eager to lead and guide everyone else toward whether ideal has captured their fancy or through which they have come to order the world and insist that everyone else partake in the glory of that vision). the political left or right, whether from the position of social expectations or religious premises, race, or something else. . . it doesn't really matter, the "othering" is what matters. Education may supply the language; it is not a predicate for the convergence of the habits of othering that have become, in a sense, the great identifier of the American spirit in 2026.
That becomes clear when one compares two political figures who might be styled exemplars of the art of othering--not just each other--but as a means of signifying actions, events, and characteristics as the spyholes through which worlds can be constructed, concepts and objects can be signified, and the "other shoe" of othering--its fatal attraction to the Leninist impulse to view humans as clay (and dumb or uneducated, or unenlightened lumps of possibility) that may be molded to suit some vision or other than they assume each embodies. Yet the self-appointed drivers of American values, belief, actions, expectations, different in every generation but always interested in influence--of belief, of the ordering of a rationalization of (political but also social and economic) of reality and thus its forms of approaching challenging and envisioning an ideal (the signification of the otherwise abstracted notions that constitute the normative framework of the Republic).
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From a semiotic perspective the speeches are remarkably similar. Each invokes old political-cultural objects and signifies them in ways that align with underlying foundational presumptions about an idealized version of the United States that then serves as the basis through which one can elaborate those expectations, including expectations of belief, that then serves as a means of othering heretics and identifying apostasy. In this case they seek to other each other and in the process invoke the very sort of Leninist settler colonialist palette that each finds useful when deployed against the other. Settler colonialism, usually deployed as a semiotic fetish in shaping discourse and the significs of power relations among differentiated groups within and among polities (especially among certain political elements of intellectual elites and their claques but by no means limited in its utility to them and their narrow political-social-cultural agendas), might also be thought useful as a way of framing, more generally, the dynamics of settler-indigenous relations not just historically but as a contemporaneous expression of the political-social-cultural consequences of migration as a function of particular ways of approaching the meaning and application of core abstract concepts of a liberal democratic polity as populations are displaced, engorged, and thus transformed. It is migrant-colonialist in the sense of the notion that waves of migrations have an inherent or natural right or expectation of embedding their own signification of politics-economic-religion etc, into the territories which they then occupy or gather in. At its limit it suggests the assimilation of indigenous populations into the lebenswelt of migrants; but it also is embedded in the idea of migrant contributions to (re)shaping their lands of settlement through the contributions of their own cognitive cages into and now as part of the fabric of an expanded indigenous colonial space. It is Leninist in the sense that it also embraces the notion of vanguard leadership the purpose of which is to shape or direct (and accelerate) this process of political reshaping of indigenous socio-culture to suit a re-imagined ideal that is the product of this assimilation.
For the President that colonialist experience became hard wired with the founding of the Republic; for New York's Mayor settler colonialism is an ongoing experience lubricated by and through waves of migration that reshape the Republic more to their liking. Each then defines patriotism with respect to their sense of the temporality of settler colonialist power.
The Mayor's settler colonialism is worth a little more examination if only because it raises some interesting issues the resolution of which may not be possible (or may expose the subtextual premises or objectives that drive analysis). It is possible to read in the Mayor's text the suggestion that colonialism is shaped differently in every generation and in context, but that that migration represents a form of settling colonialism that is very much in the spirit of the founding ideology of the Republic--which itself is, for him perhaps, grounded in the notion of constant revolution driven by waves of migrants who reshape the Republic in a sort of dialectic with the indigenous population into which they are embedded or will displace (the latter for example in the subtext of the discursive oddity of identifying and counting discrete groups as objects signifying power to project and impose cultural-social-economic-and political norms against shifting collective ideals). What makes the Mayor's settler colonialism good is the conceit that the waves of migrants were forced to the Americas against their will in one way or another. Notice the passive voice: "For generation after generation, we have been told that when the world has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent its best." Any yet that appears to be, one might suggest, the traditional patterns of migration of peoples all over the world. It is a thin reed indeed to distinguish similar consequences from migration--indeed it is not intent but perhaps effect that might be a useful additional consideration. In any case, the New York Mayor consciously represents the ruling forces of such displacement as an elite (and therefore leading element) of the the newer waves of colonialist migration (as he mentions) in which role one can view that collective as a vanguard element of the rationalizing reshaping of the Republic more in the image of that current wave of colonialist migration. He represents good settler colonialism among as opposed to others against some of which he has campaigned.
The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional because here, nothing is fixed into place. The frontier may be closed, we may have walked on the moon, but the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence — that work endures and it belongs to us all. It belongs too to our newest Americans, those standing here with me today, all of whom were recently naturalized. Nearly a decade ago, I too felt what you feel, the joy of no longer being just a New Yorker, but an American too. You each hold a special power, the power to determine what America means. (Mamdani Remarks)
The President references a colonialist experience locked in time:
You do not have to be born here, but you do have to love what we have built. You must love our country. There has never been anything like us anywhere on Earth, and we are not going to let anyone take that away. . . . Yet, as we approach this magnificent anniversary, we see our American identity under a renewed attack. A generation after we fought and won the Cold War against the menace of communism, there is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success. . . As for those who peddle Marxist lies about our heritage, tell our children that we live on stolen land or that our heroes were oppressors, they’re doing something much worse than slandering our past. They are slandering and attacking our future. Not going to let that happen. They’re trying to tear down the great American character to destroy the people who declared independence, who crossed the Delaware, who settled the West and conquered the skies. You know who those people are. But we will never let that happen. (Trump Remarks)
These then shape their sense (the semiotics) of patriotism, and in the process provide a window onto its political expression within the MAGA and Democratic Socialist (both so-called) camps. For the New York Mayor it follows that the Republic, as a function of migration as a constant, is a social-ethnic state of settler colonialist revolution/transformation, in the style of Trotsky:
There are some who respond to those who ask for more from America with a simple refrain. “Love it or leave it,” they say. But patriotism has never been about pretending our nation is without flaws. Patriotism is every act of righteous dissent. It is every march led under the heavy sun. It is every protest held a decade before its time. It is precisely because we love this nation that we will not leave it. After all, who loves America more than those who have sacrificed so much to make it free?(Mamdani Remarks)
For the President, this state of transformation and dialectic, and certainly one grounded in the inherent transformative nature of migration, is the essence of subversion:
For generations, it was understood that the core patriotic duty of every American was to pass this culture on to our children and to preserve the nation for centuries and centuries to come. But in recent years, there’s been an undeniable attempt to change this exceptional character, to beat the American spirit out of us, alienate us from our history, and to make it impossible to even answer the question, what does it mean to be an American? (Trump Remarks)
And both embrace quite distinct significations of the fundamental principles that each extracts from the founding documents. That is the most fascinating part of the comparison--the evocation of common text into which are infused substantially distinct significs made possible because the grounding cognitive starting points of each is to some extent largely incompatible--and deliberately so.
Taken together one begins to see the shape of the Republic that may be emerging. It is one in which old text objects have been revivified as the representation of contemporary desire; in which the impulse of settler colonialism remains strong--especially in newer waves of migration, and in which the impulse to identify and vest authority in vanguards of leading social forces that are dedicated to reshaping the cognitive cages in which the Republic knows itself, and against which contemporary deviance is monitored, assessed, and corrected, appears as string now as when these notions first came into modern style play after the violence of 1861-65. The United States will no doubt emerge the stronger for it; yet semiotically it will also emerge as something that, true to itself, will redefine its present by recasting its past toward a reimagined future solidarity with which will distinguish future patriots from counterrevolutionary or subversive forces that recertification of whom will engage our new leading forces.
The following is the full transcript of President Donald Trump’s remarks at the iconic Mount Rushmore national memorial on July 3, 2026.
Editor’s Note: President Donald Trump delivered remarks at the iconic Mount Rushmore national memorial on July 3, 2026, as part of the “Freedom 250” celebrations marking the nation’s 250th anniversary. In his address, the President reflected on the theme of what it means to be an American and offered a sharp critique of communism, positioning his speech as a tribute to the leaders who shaped the United States. The event, which included military tributes and a fireworks display, served as the kickoff for a weekend of nationwide festivities commemorating the nation’s historic milestone.
Opening Remarks and Acknowledgments
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, thank you very much to the men and women of the South Dakota Air National Guard and those beautiful F-35s. We love them. And I want to thank you all for being here. This is a big crowd. This is a lovely crowd. And what a sight it is.
I want to thank Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a good friend of mine and all of us. Senator Mike Rounds, great guy. Governor Larry Rhoden . Thank you, Larry. Lieutenant Governor Venhuizen.
Oh, they’re good. I was waiting for that. They said, you start speaking, they won’t interrupt you at all. They didn’t interrupt us at all. Thank you. They’re fantastic. What great, incredible, talented pilots. Thank you very much.
Secretary Burgum, who’s doing a phenomenal job. Governor Ron DeSantis. Thank you. Governor DeSantis. Where’s Ron? Thank you, Ron.
250 Years of American Independence
Distinguished guests and fellow citizens, tonight, we gather on the eve of one of the most extraordinary days in the history of the world. Tomorrow, we mark 250 years of glorious independence and 250 years of majestic American freedom. Nothing like it.
In all the chronicles of the ages, never before has any nation celebrated so magnificent a triumph as this one, the one that we are participating in right now.
At 250 years, America is the oldest republic on Earth. We are the freest people on Earth. We have the most righteous and enduring constitution on Earth. We are the strongest and most powerful country on Earth. And by the grace of God, the United States of America is the most successful, most accomplished, most exceptional nation ever to exist in human history.
And it is great to be your President. It is great. Your President. It is great.
For a quarter of a millennium, liberty, justice, equality, self-government, and unmatched prosperity have flourished here as they have never flourished anywhere before. There is nothing like what we are doing.
The birth and survival of the American nation under God is quite simply the best and most incredible thing ever to happen on this planet by human hands ever. That is ever, ever, ever. No other country has done more good for this world than the United States of America. And we give thanks for these extraordinary blessings.
America as a Rare and Miraculous Exception
We must remember that what we have created in this country is not the natural way of the world. It is not the norm. It is the exception. It is rare. It is priceless. And it is truly miraculous.
Throughout the entire story of humanity, most people in most places have lived a life plagued by suffering, poverty, exploitation, violence, and misery. But here in America, in this land, on this continent, we have written a very different story. It’s a tale of adventure, liberation, and unmatched greatness.
It’s the story of people governing themselves, the many uniting as one, the men and women rising by their own skill and talent to go further and reach higher than anyone has ever gone before. There has never been anything like this.
The triumph of American independence was the result of the most extraordinary people in history, the most extraordinary culture in history, and the most extraordinary ideas in history, all creating the most extraordinary republic ever, ever, ever in history. It all came together for the miracle of July 4th, 1776. That was a big year. 250 years ago, tomorrow. What a big day that is.
I consider this a big day because I’m with you. I like that too. And by the way, we won big here. We won really big. Each and every time.
The Declaration of Independence and the Founding Fathers
But 250 years ago tomorrow, the words of our Declaration of Independence sent an earthquake through all of the coming time. They sparked a revolution that has never ended but still continues to this day.
And tonight, we come to this beautiful mountain, and it is beautiful, to express our gratitude to those who made it possible, starting with the four men most responsible for reaching this milestone more than any others.
We salute the father of our country, George Washington. The author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. The great emancipator and savior of our union, Abraham Lincoln. And the man who built America into a global superpower, Theodore Roosevelt.
These are the men who declared the freedom, won our freedom, saved our freedom, and secured our freedom. They were men of action, men of ambition, men of daring, men of destiny, and men of truly great intelligence. Above all, they were great men of history.
Tonight, on the threshold of our 250th year, we stand beneath the monument of these heroes, a true group of unbelievable people. And we rededicate ourselves to being a nation as big, bold, noble, and as great as these American giants. And that’s not easy to do, but we’re going to do it.
These men could only have been made in the USA. Their faces are engraved on these bluffs, not only because of what they did, but to remind us forever who we are. These heroes exemplify what is timeless, enduring, and eternal about the American character.
The American Character and Identity
And in the end, it has always been that character, our distinct and unique identity.
It is a truly unique identity, and it’ll never change. It’s the ultimate source of our strength and the bulwark of our freedom.
On this anniversary, we must remember, we have to remember, we can never forget that American liberty has not endured for 250 years merely because of words on paper. Liberty has prevailed here because of the culture and character of the people who declared it, defended it, and preserved it.
These are very, very special times, and this is a very special place. You live in a very special place. Congratulations, everybody.
The identity of a nation is the destiny of a nation, and America has a destiny like no other because we are a people like no other. For whatever reason, that’s just the way it is.
Here, the old world sent its bravest, boldest, and most resilient, its fiercest, most faithful, and freedom-loving. These men and women brought values, traditions, and customs transmitted over the centuries in Britain and stretching back even further to Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome.
The United States of America is where the greatest civilization in human history became greater than ever before. On the grounds and granite hills and the rugged plains of this wide-open continent, they forged a uniquely American character, a new breed of citizen. That’s you. Congratulations. Congratulations.
You’re not that new a breed. You’re a really good breed, but I’m not sure that you’re that new a breed.
Americans did not bow before a king or a government, but kneeled only before Almighty God. That’s right.
These were the people who founded our republic. These were the patriots who fought for independence. This was the spirit that demanded freedom, and this was the culture that built America and carved its heroes into Mount Rushmore.
Preserving American Culture for Future Generations
For generations, it was understood that the core patriotic duty of every American was to pass this culture on to our children and to preserve the nation for centuries and centuries to come.
But in recent years, there’s been an undeniable attempt to change this exceptional character, to beat the American spirit out of us, alienate us from our history, and to make it impossible to even answer the question, what does it mean to be an American?
As we march into our 250th year, credible, beautiful year it will be, we must never forget there is no American freedom without American culture. And there is no American founding without the American people.
Many nations have paper constitutions and legal systems, but the citizens live in fear and squalor. A constitution is only as strong as the people and the culture responsible for upholding it.
But as long as we remember who we are, we have to always remember who we are and what we’re all about, the United States of America will forever be the land of free men and women, and we will never, ever fail.
What Makes Americans Unique
So tonight, let us say clearly and proudly what makes Americans so unique and extraordinary. We’re going to give our country its identity back.
Above all, Americans love freedom. We cherish independence, and we know that we are the heirs to the most beautiful land, the most thrilling story, and the most precious legacy in which the sun has ever shined.
In America, we do not need anyone’s permission to say what we think and to live as we please, to worship as we choose, or to keep and bear arms. You know that. And for almost six years during my presidency, I’ve saved almost single-handedly, but working with John and some other great people. We’ve saved your Second Amendment, and I will continue to do so, I promise. Our rights here are given to us by the God who made us and those rights shall not be infringed.
Americans believe in self-reliance. We look at success with envy not. And I say that some people are envious and some people are not. We are not. But with admiration and we earn it and we will always earn it and we will always respect it.
We are an incredible, good, kind and generous people, always ready to help a friend or a neighbor in need. No one has ever given more to charity, ended more hunger, cured more disease, or done more to uplift humanity than Americans, and no country ever will be able to match it. Thank you. So true.
Americans honor excellence. We admire boldness. We respect ambition. We are a nation of dreamers and believers, warriors and explorers, doers and fighters. In every human endeavor, Americans see an unfinished competition. What is strong can be made stronger. What is fast can be made faster. What is great can be made greater than ever before. And that’s what’s happening with America.
Show us a mountain, and we’ll just climb it. Show us an ocean, and we’ll just cross it. Show us a problem, and we will just solve it. Show us a task the world calls impossible and Americans will get it done.ç
Americans are strong and always ready to stand firm for a good cause. We treasure justice, fairness, family, honesty, and human dignity. Unlike societies based on class, clan, or tribe, we see every citizen as an individual equal under the law and equal under the eyes of the Lord.
In America, we speak English because that is the language of our founding. For a thousand years, that has been the language of freedom.
An American always wants peace and order, but we will never shrink from danger or threat. We will always fight, fight, fight, and win, win, win. We’ve got to do that.
Because this is our culture, this is our character. Not every American is all of these things, but every American knows these are the traits that make our country exceptional. And exceptional it is.
You do not have to be born here, but you do have to love what we have built. You must love our country. There has never been anything like us anywhere on Earth, and we are not going to let anyone take that away.
The Threat of Communism to American Liberty
Yet, as we approach this magnificent anniversary, we see our American identity under a renewed attack. A generation after we fought and won the Cold War against the menace of communism, there is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success.
These are not mere political disagreements like differences over taxes or regulations. Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or even 9-11. We’re not going to let this happen to us. Believe me, we’re not letting it happen.
Because communism is the enemy of free people everywhere, everywhere in the world. Never works. It’s the enemy of the Constitution. Above all, it’s the enemy of July 4th, 1776. It is the enemy indeed.
Even while the radicals and extremists attack our incredible history at every turn, they are silent on the miserable history of communism itself because it never worked. Thousands of years, if you look at it, under different names, under somewhat different ideologies and systems, that system has led to more death and destruction than any system ever tried. It killed 100 million people just in the last century alone.
Communism is the exact opposite of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It’s death, tyranny, and the pursuit of evil. The godless communist morality states that anything is justified to bring about inhuman visions and to really propose what’s good. They don’t want good. They don’t love God, and they don’t want God. They don’t love religion and they don’t want religion and they won’t have it. But we will not let them win. They have no chance against us.
They have no respect for law, justice, principle, tradition, or your God-given rights. It’s an ideology of mass theft, mass control, mass lies, and mass murder. Such doctrines can be given no quarter in a democracy because the first thing they do when they get into power is turn around and destroy it. It always is destroyed, just as communists have done in other countries all over the world, no matter where you look.
Very simply, communism represents the worst ideas and abuses in history by the worst people. The American founding represents the best ideas and traditions in history by the best people like you.
You can be loyal to Karl Marx or you can be loyal to America. You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.
Defending America’s Heritage and Future
As for those who peddle Marxist lies about our heritage, tell our children that we live on stolen land or that our heroes were oppressors, they’re doing something much worse than slandering our past. They are slandering and attacking our future. Not going to let that happen.
They’re trying to tear down the great American character to destroy the people who declared independence, who crossed the Delaware, who settled the West and conquered the skies. You know who those people are. But we will never let that happen.
Vanquishing Communism and Building America’s Future
Our American ancestors did not shed their blood at Concord and Trenton, Gettysburg and Shiloh, Midway and Normandy, just so that a band of thieves, radicals, and lunatics could come in and loot and pillage our nation. Our heroes died to win, build, and to save, and to build truly a great country, the greatest country ever in the world.
So, on the eve of this 250th anniversary of American heritage, we resolve and swear for all to hear that the citizens of the United States of America will vanquish communism quickly. Don’t let them take too much of your time. You know they’re wasting your time, don’t you?
But we’re not going to let them take too long or too much of our time as they play their games and send them into exile. We will send them quickly away and we will continue to build our country bigger and better and stronger than ever before. America will never be a communist country.
We can only lose the midterms if we allow ourselves to lose the midterms if we are foolish, stupid, and unwise. But if we terminate the filibuster as we should do and immediately vote for the Save America Act, then we will not lose an election for 100 years.
We do that. We’re not going to lose an election for 100 years. The Communist Party is made up of illegal immigrants, criminals, and everybody that doesn’t want to work. Communism is a loser. It always was, and it is right now.
It’s a big loser. Look at the people that are promoting it. They are not the people you’re going to follow.
America’s Unmatched Achievements
In 250 years, the free people of this land have accomplished more with our liberty than any other society has accomplished, even in thousands and thousands of years, as you look back and you study. What our critics will never understand is that America is not the sum of its mistakes. Our mistakes make us human.
Our achievements make us American. And nobody has ever had the achievements that we’ve had. We are the nation that dreamed and created the modern world. We laid the railroads. We raised up those big, beautiful skyscrapers, harnessed electricity, and invented the light bulb, the telephone, the airplane, the assembly line, the television, the microchip, the personal computer, the internet, the GPS, the smartphone, and almost everything else that has ever been invented, including, especially over the last few days in certain areas, a thing called air conditioning.
We invented it all. We charted the human genome to cure diseases. We powered entire cities by splitting single atoms and planted our flag on the moon. Americans fill the airwaves of the planet with our music and our culture. We invented baseball, basketball, football, volleyball, NASCAR, and the rodeo.
We love that rodeo of the West. Americans have won the most Olympic medals of any country in the world by far, the most Nobel prizes. Well, they haven’t given me one. It’s the elite wars. I still haven’t gotten it. That’s okay.
And the most world records. We published by far the most patents. We produce the best movies. We make the best music. And we raise up the greatest entertainers and strongest athletes the world has ever seen. So true.
America’s Economic and Military Strength
We built the biggest and most dynamic economy. And by the way, our country today is doing better than it’s ever done before. Never had anything like it.
With as of last week, $19.2 trillion pouring into the United States right now from all over the world. That’s the investments being made. And the record was three. Four years and four years. The last administration did much less than one, and we did 19.2 in 12 months.
And thanks to our great election win, November 5th, and the tariffs, plants and factories are being built all over the United States right now, and they’re being built at a number that we’ve never, ever seen before. So much more. There’s — we’re breaking records by double, triple, quadruple.
We created the strongest and most powerful military. We won two world wars — the Cold War — left America’s enemies in the depths of history. We beat Venezuela in one day, and we knocked the hell out of Iran. They’re dying to settle. They want to settle so badly. We gave them a week off for a funeral because we’re nice.
For 250 years, the entire world has looked to our country and been inspired by the leaps of progress, feats of strength, and acts of selflessness, faith, and hope that could only have happened right here.
Two years ago, we were laughed at, mocked, and the nation in decline. We were in very serious decline. Last administration, what they’ve done to us, we can never, ever forget that. And today we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. Everybody respects us like no nation.
Remember this, we’re respected like no nation in the world is respected like us. Every king, every prime minister, every president, they respect us more than any other country by far. Two years ago, they laughed at us. Now it’s only respect. And I want to tell you, the best is yet to come.
The Golden Age of America
So, in conclusion, from the roaring waters of Niagara Falls, to the shimmering gushes of oil and fire from our beloved Texas, from the magnificent fields of corn and wheat and barley of our farms in the Midwest, to the vast canyons of finance in New York City, from the billowing sacks of steel now being produced all over our country at record levels, to the car plants that are rising like we have never seen before.
We have more plants under construction than we’ve had ever before. Automobile plants, something you didn’t see of at all for 35 years. To technology from the minds of geniuses that is being brought to life in all corners of our country, from the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies to the white sand shores of the Gulf of America. And to right here in the Black Hills of the Dakotas.
After 250 years, American freedom still rings. The American dream still lives, and the American flag still flies more proudly than ever before. Over the people who will not quit, the nation that will not fail, the country that will not fall, no matter how hard the enemy tries, we cannot be beaten.
Tomorrow, we reach a milestone like no other and celebrate with joyful hearts and soaring spirits because after two and a half centuries, we know that this is not an ending. This is only the beginning of the Golden Age of America.
And together, we will make America bigger, better, and stronger than ever before. I promise you that. It’s an honor to be your president. Thank you very much and happy Independence Day to all. God bless you all. God bless you all. Thank you.
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The following is the full transcript of Zohran Mamdani’s remarks on America’s 250th anniversary, July 3, 2026.
Editor’s Note: In this address marking America’s 250th anniversary, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani reflects on the nation’s history, from its founding ideals to its ongoing evolution as a country built by immigrants and diverse communities. The Mayor challenges conventional narratives of “American exceptionalism,” arguing that the nation’s true strength lies in its capacity for progress and the continuous, collective effort to fulfill the promise of democracy. By weaving together stories of resilience from New York’s past and present, the speech serves as a call to action for all Americans to participate in the ongoing work of making the nation more just and inclusive.
Good Morning, My Fellow Americans
ZOHRAN MAMDANI: Good morning, my fellow Americans. Season after season, year after year, the tides have come in and out of New York Harbor. Long before the name New York had ever been spoken, Lenape dugouts crossed these currents. It was on these waters that tall masts crested the horizon, captained by explorers like Verrazano and Hudson, after whom we’ve named our bridges and rivers. And ever since, ships full of travelers weary from long journeys have passed through the narrows, the winds of the Atlantic at their backs.
When those passengers lifted their heads to glimpse what lies just beyond the waves, what did they see? They saw land, lush and teeming with life. They saw men waiting at the docks to take them into bondage. They saw tenements rife with squalor. They saw industry rumbling with activity, steam and smoke rising, a city on the move. They saw a towering monument to freedom, her torch glowing, worldwide welcome. They saw New York City. They saw America.
250 Years of a Grand Experiment
Tomorrow, our nation marks 250 years since we declared our independence, 250 years of a grand experiment in self-governance, an experiment so audacious that some in 1776 doubted it would last more than a few years, let alone a quarter of a millennium. From Lexington to Los Angeles, Selma to Seneca Falls, Mauritania to Midwood, Americans will come together for a day, just as we do each year. Families will gather around the grill, fireworks will fill the night sky.
This will be no ordinary day of celebration. Two hundred and fifty years presents a rare opportunity for more than 340 million people to turn together, both towards one another and towards ourselves, to take measure of who we are as a nation. When we look at America, what do we see?
Here at City Hall, as I sit behind George Washington’s desk alongside new Americans who came to this country, I cannot see all of America, but like so many who came before, I can see New York City.
The City Washington Once Knew
The city I see today looks very different than the one that greeted George Washington. In July of 1776, our city simmered under the yoke of oppression. The British had imposed a colonial rule so repressive that 250 years ago, 80 miles south, a small group of newspaper editors, farmers, and soldiers signed their names on a document declaring truths that feel self-evident now, but were revolutionary then, establishing the ideals our nation still strives to fulfill.
The British did not take it well. War broke out. And that August, as the largest battle of the Revolutionary War unfolded in Brooklyn, batteries on Governor’s Island took aim at British ships anchored just offshore. We were outgunned, we were outmanned, and we were soundly defeated. After only a few months, it appeared our fledgling attempt at democracy was on the precipice of collapse.
But that night, with the moon overhead, thousands of our soldiers silently climbed into ferries and flat-bottomed boats and escaped to Manhattan. The Continental Army survived to fight another day. Independence may have been declared in Philadelphia, but it was rescued in New York City.
An Opportunity to Begin Anew
George Washington was the last to leave Brooklyn. As he waited at the river’s edge, the sun beginning its rise, he would have looked out over New York City’s waters and seen what so many have seen in the 250 years since, an opportunity to begin anew. Those opportunities, like everything in New York City, are not given, they are won.
In 1838, 11 years after New York outlawed slavery, a recently emancipated black man by the name of James Weeks sought to begin anew as well, and to help hundreds of others do the same. He bought property in Brooklyn, won himself the right to vote, and sold lots to others newly freed. When they landed in New York Harbor, they knew they had something waiting for them that they had never had before, a home.
Weeksville still stands today, a living, breathing testament to what we know America to be, a place each of us has the power to make. The harbor was busy those years, as ships poured in from around the world.
A City Shaped by Those Who Were Told They Did Not Belong
Hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants arrived with stomachs aching from a famine manufactured by imperial cruelty. Chinese sailors settled in what is today Chinatown. Millions more traveled under the Statue of Liberty and through Ellis Island, Jewish people escaping pogroms, Italians fleeing poverty, Syrians seeking economic opportunity.
Each of these new arrivals peered through portholes onto a city that was changing as fast as the nation. They saw merchants peddling their wares on the docks, streets being laid out on a grid, buildings rising into the clouds. They could not yet see the nativism they would face, the jobs they would be refused, the landlords who would not rent to them, and the abject labor and living conditions they would withstand. But no matter how much smog hung over the harbor, they still saw an opportunity to begin anew.
Over the years that followed, despite laws enacted by the federal government to bar their entry, despite sweatshop fires that killed hundreds of women, despite riots aimed at their very existence, immigrants made homes here in New York City, and they helped to make New York City.
The Promise of America, Carried Forward by Every Generation
That legacy of every generation of Americans insisting that the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness extends to them, too, is no relic of the past.
My family did not arrive by boat, although we saw the Statue of Liberty from the window of the plane. Even from the air, we could make out the promise of America, the promise of the beautiful patriotic work of rendering America, year after year, a little more faithful to its founding ideals.
What American Exceptionalism Really Means
There is a term so often used to describe our nation and those who have shaped it: American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism, the conventional wisdom tells us, makes our freedom a little more free, is how we dug the Erie Canal and irrigated the West, is why children in faraway lands grow up dreaming of one day moving here.
And yet the irony is that the story of America has so often been written by those who were told by others with power and influence and wealth that they were anything but exceptional.
For generation after generation, we have been told that when the world has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent its best. It sent Puritans and Sikhs and Quakers and Muslims and Jewish people who were banished for praying the wrong way, worshipping the wrong gods, angering the wrong people. It sent peasants and serfs from slums and shtetls who were treated as less because they hardly owned clothes, let alone land. It sent immigrants for whom power was something someone else had.
We are told that America is exceptional because we are richer, stronger, more powerful than everyone else. The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional because here, nothing is fixed into place. The frontier may be closed, we may have walked on the moon, but the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence — that work endures and it belongs to us all.
A Message to Our Newest Americans
It belongs too to our newest Americans, those standing here with me today, all of whom were recently naturalized. Nearly a decade ago, I too felt what you feel, the joy of no longer being just a New Yorker, but an American too. You each hold a special power, the power to determine what America means.
The powerful have always known their answer. America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal. America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes. America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin.
Division and Progress: The Oldest Trick in Politics
The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit. How small they are, how weak, how unoriginal. At every moment in our past, those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power and enrich themselves by turning us against one another. Division is the oldest trick in politics, and the cheapest. But time and again, including 250 years ago, those forces of division have been vanquished by the forces of progress.
As Thomas Paine once wrote, “This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty, hither have they fled.” And yet today, too many of our leaders do not believe in a vision of this nation as an asylum for the persecuted, but rather as one that persecutes those seeking asylum.
A City of Contradictions Within a Nation of Contradictions
As we mark 250 years, what do we see? We see a city of contradictions within a nation of contradictions. We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world, one where children go to sleep hungry while the world’s first trillionaire hungers for more. We see monopolies that dominate every industry and oligarchs who buy elections. We see masked agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans.
We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt-streaked hands, those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone. And we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of a precious few.
Yes, we see America in a health insurance industry that exploits the sick, but that is not all we see when we look for America. We see it, too, in the nurse who works a double shift and then stops on her way home to check on an ailing neighbor.
Yes, we see America in corporate landlords for whom negligence is a business model. We see it, too, in the father who tucks his children into bed beneath a ceiling stained with leaks, who wakes before dawn to go to work and still believes his country can do better by his family.
Yes, we see America when we spend our tax dollars on bombs and bailouts, when we sell our elections to the highest bidder. Yet we see it just as clearly in every American who still believes this country belongs to we, the people.¡
We see America each time neighbors link arms with neighbors, without asking how long they have lived here or what papers they have, as ICE invades our neighborhoods. We see America each time those young and old stand in the beating rain or the stifling heat to cast their ballots. We see America each time working people demand more, not just for themselves, but for their fellow Americans.
Patriotism Is Every Act of Righteous Dissent
There are some who respond to those who ask for more from America with a simple refrain. “Love it or leave it,” they say. But patriotism has never been about pretending our nation is without flaws. Patriotism is every act of righteous dissent. It is every march led under the heavy sun. It is every protest held a decade before its time. It is precisely because we love this nation that we will not leave it. After all, who loves America more than those who have sacrificed so much to make it free?
The Ninth of July: When the Declaration Arrived in New York
Today, I think not only of the Fourth of July. I think, too, of the Ninth of July. Five days after the Declaration of Independence was signed, it arrived here in our New York City. Redcoats had disembarked on Staten Island. More than a hundred British ships loomed just offshore. Across this city, the Continental Army prepared for an invasion. George Washington commanded his brigades to assemble just a few feet from this building. It was known then as the Commons. Today, we call it City Hall Park. There, within range of British guns, Washington ordered his generals to read the Declaration aloud.
America’s Enduring Ideals
And with the world’s mightiest empire poised to attack, Washington told the people of New York City what we will celebrate tomorrow, that we had declared our independence, that freedom was within reach.
That evening, danger loomed. Conflict was not a question, but a certainty. And yet when those early New Yorkers marched toward the statue of King George III that stood in the Bowling Green, a statue they would melt down into bullets for their young army, they walked in unison, grounded not in the pursuit of plunder, but an ideal that for the first time had a name, America.
Those ideals upon which our nation was built, they are strong enough to endure any authoritarian regime, but only if we reach for them. Ours is a nation working each day towards the perfection in which it was conceived, a nation striving each day to better itself. Therein lies the work of America, the striving, the bettering, the reaching towards perfection.
What a privilege each of us has to live in a nation that every one of its inhabitants can shape. What a responsibility each of us possesses to prove ourselves worthy of all those who came before. What power each of us holds to bring America ever closer to the greatness so many have seen when they looked upon these shores, the greatness that for 250 years has been America.
Thank you. God bless America. God bless New York City, and happy 4th of July
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