Perhaps it’s a sign from Mother Nature that the two flagship events of the Philadelphia’s Wawa Welcome America Festival for the semiquincentennial were derailed by weather. Maybe she was telling us to stop this embarrassing exhibition of unbridled nationalism and look inward. But if she thought that she could succeed in getting Americans to self-reflect, even by replicating the conditions of the depths of hell where our leaders will surely burn, she was sorely mistaken. How naive! Clearly she has never truly contended with the levels of blinding patriotism of the average American, or the masochistic tenacity of a Defector intern who will sacrifice anything to get the story.
Despite the temperature reaching nearly 100 degrees in the middle of the day, I embarked on my expedition. The closer I got to Philadelphia’s Old City, the deeper I ventured into a different version of the United States than the one I was used to. This version looked like the mind of Uncle Sam suffering from post-concussion syndrome. The air was filled with the smell of fried dough, port-a-potties, and the dissolution of the EPA. Scattered “U-S-A” chants carried across the neighborhood, just in case anyone forgot what country we lived in. Street vendors and Christian proselytizers stood side by side on the pavement, in a heartwarming testament to the American spirit and the Protestant ethic. Sunburnt and khaki-clad families walked around while wearing garish AI-generated shirts that featured uncomfortably ripped George Washingtons, or said things like “I can’t hear you over the sound of my freedom.” Even a food delivery robot trucked along with a little American flag.