U.S. President Donald Trump at Geneva Airport in Geneva, Switzerland, June 17, 2026. Martial Trezzini/Pool via REUTERS
During her years as a speechwriter in the Reagan White House, conservative columnist/author Mona Charen often echoed President Ronald Reagan's "morning in America" themes. But Charen, writing for The Bulwark, acknowledges that she's greeting the United States' 250th anniversary with a heavy heart thanks to Donald Trump's second presidency and policies she considers disastrous.
"The approach of July Fourth is making my heart hurt," Charen laments in The Bulwark. "Love of this country is deep-dyed in my soul, but pondering how or even whether to celebrate the semi-quincentennial provokes a riot of mixed feelings. The right — and not just the MAGA right — responds to any queasiness about this particular anniversary with knee-jerk vituperation."
Charen notes that MAGA Republicans are accusing actor Robert Di Niro of "hating America" because of his intense disdain for Trump, but she stresses that opposing Trump isn't synonymous with hating the United States.
"I have no idea where De Niro stands on many political issues," Charen writes. "I may disagree with him on some policy matters, but his despair about the current iteration of America resonates with me and with millions of other Americans…. I'll see De Niro's plaint and raise him. It's difficult to love America when we reelected a man who threatens our neighbors, fawns over dictators, attempts to overturn an election, terrorizes and tortures immigrants, trashes the Constitution, says the greatest threat to our country is the 'enemy within,' enjoys the murder of critics like Robert Reiner, pillages the treasury to enrich himself and his family, sics prosecutors on his critics while pardoning his allies, attempts to use government power to co-opt or silence the press, defunds lifesaving foreign aid while offering asylum only to white South Africans, commits multiple murders in the Caribbean, cannot complete an English sentence, and starts wars he cannot finish because he's a vainglorious idiot too enraptured by his own myths to take advice."
The former Reagan White House official adds, "It is painful to look at our flag with mixed feelings, but how can we not when the MAGA crowd has so conspicuously appropriated it as their symbol?"
Charen emphasizes, however, that the U.S. is well worth saving.
"America has demonstrated a capacity for self-correction in the past," the conservative journalist argues. "Suffrage was gradually expanded from white property owners to all white men and then to Black men and finally women. Slavery was obliterated by the Civil War. The greed and peculation of the Gilded Age gave way to the progressive era. (Sen. Joseph) McCarthy's reckless bullying was rebuked by Congress. (President Richard) Nixon's crimes were followed by government reforms."
Charen adds, "It's possible that we have crested as a nation and are now in permanent decline…. But when you consider our strengths and our virtues, giving up on loving this country and working to steer it towards a better future would be a tragic dereliction."