Countdown to July 4, 2026

When I attended Los Angeles Junior College in the fall of 1969, I stepped into a temporary bungalow classroom—the campus still brand new—thinking I’d simply knock out my general education requirement for U.S. history. What I didn’t expect to find was a teacher—small in stature but a giant storyteller—who so captivated me for twenty weeks that I fell in love with the American story.

So much so, I took his advanced history classes as electives for the next three semesters before transferring to San Diego State University. Born on July 4th, I enjoyed being identified as a Yankee Doodle Dandy—sharing a birthday with my country. A flicker of patriotism was fanned into a hot flame in my high school history classes, but my junior college teacher turned it into a torch.

Years later, when my son was attending junior college, we were talking about media bias and how to gather reliable information about the events of the day. He questioned, if history is the story people tell about themselves, and if the story they’re telling in real time is not accurate, how can we trust the historical narrative?

My son is a thoughtful, critical thinker today.

This is a rich topic, and I don’t claim to be an expert on the veracity of our history—except to boldly assert that I believe the United States remains the greatest national experiment in human history: a nation founded on an idea rather than bloodlines or geography; a living constitution that keeps correcting itself; and an open invitation rather than a closed inheritance.

And here’s where the rubber meets the road. History, at least on paper, starts with the things people left behind—letters, diaries, old newspapers, speeches, photos, government records. The raw stuff. Historians sift through it like detectives, trying to figure out what people thought, what they feared, what they were chasing, and why they made the choices they did.

Then comes the interpretation—where the detective work turns into storytelling. Some historians focus on big political figures, others on regular people, others on economics, wartime decisions, or social movements. Each one shines a flashlight from a different angle. And the angle matters. It always has.

Which brings us to distortion. Because perspective isn’t neutral, and interpretation isn’t static.

Take something recent—President Biden’s mental acuity. For months, much of the media painted a picture of vigor and stability. Meanwhile, cameras caught moments that hinted at something less reassuring. Then came the 2024 debate with former President Donald Trump, and suddenly the gap between the official narrative and the visible reality was too wide to ignore. One side of the story had been turned up loud; the other, turned down to a whisper.

History does this too. It sometimes freezes a moment or a flaw and lets it stand in for the whole. Trump’s critics reduce his first presidency to chaos and controversy, leaving out his early COVID travel restrictions or Operation Warp Speed. Biden’s critics might reduce his to a single debate moment, overlooking five decades of public service. When one side is amplified and the other minimized, we’re not getting the whole story—we’re getting a curated one.

Which circles back to my son’s question: Can U.S. history be trusted?

Thirty years from now, what will people say about this era? Will it be honestly told—or cleverly resold?

Some new interpretations of history genuinely expand our understanding and correct long-standing blind spots. Others swing the pendulum too far the other way, reducing America’s complex and messy story to a one-note morality tale about power.

The answer, I think, isn’t to cling to the old or to swallow the new whole. It’s to ask of every version—left, right, traditional, revisionist—the same thing: Show me your evidence. Show me your balance. Show me your honesty.

That’s how history earns our trust. And how we keep the American story from being flattened into something it never was.