Finding real national pride on America’s 250th birthday

SARAH VAN GELDER – Our history has been one of atrocities — and extraordinary courage. An honest accounting of our nation’s founding injustices gives us the opportunity to make them right. When we do, we won’t need the swagger anymore, because we’ll have something sturdier: the real thing. We can be unified in pride for this country, and unstoppable in coming together to build what could truly be a more perfect union.

Unchecked billionaire oligarchs, not “godless communists,” are undermining American democracy

JARED O. BELL – The real threat to American democracy was never a democratic socialist winning a city primary. It is a system in which a handful of billionaires can reshape public institutions overnight, enrich themselves through the levers of government, and leave the rest of us to argue about labels while we live with the damage.