What to the Residents of the Twin Cities is the 4th of July?

Hidden Beach April 2026 in Minneapolis

“America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be
false to the future.” - Frederick Douglass, 1852

Let no lemonade, firecracker or tubed meat pass through my hands for the rest of my Julys without thinking about the unkept promises of the Fourth of July. If you are proud of America you should be worried for America. I love America and I fear for its future. We are 250 years in and we are at the nadir of the American experiment within my lifetime. There are many pain points but Operation Metro Surge looms large in my mind. The Federal government waged an invasion of choice against many cities but none with the cruelty and volume they used against our Twin Cities. 

There was no justification for the focus on the Twin Cities. There was no unique measure of immigration related infractions that would justify the Twin Cities defending ourselves against a federal force 12 times the size of the one deployed in Chicago, a metro area three times as large as ours. 

I cannot compare the modern day cruelties forced onto immigrants and protesters with the cruelties of chattel slavery. But I do compare my disgust with the larceny of my times with Frederick Douglass’s disgust with his. 

This summer will be filled with the American flag and with declarations of pride for America. I have no doubt that the Trump administration will be in on the photo shoots, the barbecues, the speeches. They deserve none of it. I hope the first slice of ice cream pie that Stephen Miller eats on the White House lawn gives him sight for the first time. Sight that his campaign of American terror has no place in the path our country should be carving. I hope that Donald Trump sees that the police force he commands is inhumane and criminal. As ICE-related cases make their way through our legal system, their wins amount to a rounding error. The actions of ICE agents will not be defended in our system. The actions are indefensible, immoral and murderous. 

In the Twin Cities we now live in the wake of Operation Metro Surge. Listen closely to the people who know it best and the operation is not over, just slowed. The Whipple Building still shuttles immigrants in without due process and ships them off as quickly as possible to circuit courts more favorable to the cause. And we still pick up and drop off our children off at schools that have signs that say that no federal agents are permitted on site without a judicial warrant. 

Our Twin Cities fought against Operation Metro Surge because it was un-American, because it was inhumane, because it was antithetical to morality, because it was vicious and because we love our neighbors. In our country’s history, and in our country’s present, we are loaded to the gills with un-American acts, with inhumanity, with droughts of morality. I celebrate our stand against Operation Metro Surge and I mourn the moments I and we have come up short in the past. We can do better and this year we will. And next year we will. If Frederick Douglass had hope in 1852 I will have hope in 2026. And if on this Fourth of July I think only of the fireworks and of the varieties of potato salad I prefer, I have failed.

Let the Fourth of July belong to the people who know this country can be better. I have never been less certain that we will win. The bastards may win. The criminals who further sully the already sullied reputation of the United States may win. I fear that my great grandchildren will be told that Sean McPherson was a part of one of the last generations to fight for a moral world that valued equality and liberty for all. As clear as I can say it, the pursuers of liberty for all are my lot. If my great grandchildren feel differently, I swear them off. The spirit of evil and of white supremacy is too foreign to me to be in one family with it. 

I reserve the taste of a hot dog with relish and mustard and the joy of modest fireworks viewed from the parking lot of the Eagan Lunds to those who fought and continue to fight. I would love nothing more than to slap the taste of a well-prepared hot dog out of Trump’s mouth, out of Miller’s mouth, out of Noem’s crooked smirk. The Fourth of July belongs to my lot, not theirs. 

The Fourth of July celebrates nothing immaculate. It celebrates the birth of a country riddled with problems and lousy with solutions. The mistakes we made can be acknowledged and can often be righted. The impulse by many Americans is to omit our mistakes from our history or to repaint them as successes. Shame on those who don’t acknowledge mistakes. Shame on those who don’t learn from them.

There is always the opportunity to be better, to be more righteous, to give more to humanity than we take from it. In “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” Douglass celebrated the opportunities our country’s relative youth gave to the 1850s: 

May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot's heart might be sadder, and the reformer's brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought, that America is young. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. 

In the Twin Cities we have rallied and resisted against evil forces in our country’s spirit and in power in our capital. The Twin Cities are the tip of the spear in the fight to point America towards its most giving, generous and familial spirit. I will celebrate that fight, that resistance and that future this Fourth of July. My community are those who celebrate in that spirit. And to them and only them I wish a Happy Fourth of July, 2026.