250 Years Later, Why We’re Still Fighting About Our Founding

What It Covers

NYT reporter Jia Lynn Yang examines America's founding mythology at the country's 250th anniversary, tracing how competing interpretations of the founders — from George Washington's fabricated cherry tree story to Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings — have driven political division between left and right for two centuries.

Key Questions Answered

• •Myth vs. Fact distinction: Historians differentiate between myths as deliberate lies and myths as collective meaning-making stories. A nation's founding myth isn't primarily about factual accuracy — it's about providing shared identity and purpose. The U.S. founding myth emerged specifically because the country lacked the usual unifying elements: a single language, official religion, or stable borders.
• •Frederick Douglass model: Douglass, born into slavery, demonstrates a third path between uncritical myth-worship and cynical deconstruction. In his speech "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July," he reframes the Declaration of Independence as a roadmap the country hasn't yet fulfilled — using the founding documents as leverage for radical change rather than rejecting or defending them wholesale.
• •Reagan-era myth consolidation: Through the 1980s, the Republican Party systematically claimed ownership of the founding narrative by fusing personal liberty, evangelical Christianity, and patriotism into one political identity. This decades-long strategy — not a sudden shift — explains why the left now struggles to counter Trump's 250th anniversary messaging with any coherent founding-based counter-narrative.
• •Fact-finding without meaning-making creates political vulnerability: Rigorous historical research revealing Jefferson's relationship with Sally Hemings (confirmed by DNA in 1999) and Indigenous dispossession gave the left factual ammunition but no unifying story. Yang argues that facts and meaning are separate projects — accumulating evidence of failure without constructing an aspirational narrative produces cynicism, not political movements.
• •Re-engagement prescription: Yang recommends returning directly to primary texts — specifically the Declaration of Independence's opening lines and the Gettysburg Address — as a starting point for rebuilding shared civic conversation. These short documents contain enough interpretive openness that Americans across political positions can debate what liberty and equality mean without requiring prior agreement.