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Island of Reil @islandofreil.northsky.social · 04/07/2026

Chrissy’s whole piece is on point, but these paragraphs deserve special emphasis:

The Declaration is often cited as a key example of the Enlightenment ideals espoused, often hypocritically, by the founding fathers. Even those who recognize the hypocrisy, like many prominent Democrats, often refer to the Declaration as setting very special aspirational ideals, as if the country’s leadership over centuries should get credit simply for ostensible good intentions, or cite the Declaration explicitly as an example of “American exceptionalism,” when this notion of national supremacy is in itself corrosive of democracy.

Like hero worship of the founding fathers, the rhetoric of exceptionalism and “national greatness” should have no place in a healthy, democratic country, and therefore should be eschewed by any supposedly democratic party. But our feckless Democratic Party leaders can’t seem to help themselves from letting the fascist Republicans frame national discourse. Often they actually seem to like the same frames.

Chrissy Stroop@thebugbeardispatch.bsky.social

Few things are more corrosive to democracy and conducive to complacency than the hero worship of a country's founders and the rhetoric of national greatness. For this semiquincentennial, I want some goddamn iconclasm and irreverence toward our slaveholder constitution share.google/JCEJtu5PiQDy...

The Founding Fathers Sucked

In honor of America’s 250 birthday, let’s stop lionizing them.