Since the Fourth of July celebration of the nation's 250 years was a bust, let's look at the next anniversary, noting when a Puritan governor declared that we would be as "a city upon a hill" in 1630.

Almost 400 years later, in our summer of desperation, that's a quaint notion.

Massachusetts Bay Colony leader John Winthrop reached for a political metaphor from the Bible, and it has served many purposes in America's story ever since. Yes, we're special, even exceptional. The world watches us shine. Ronald Reagan drew on this idea often.

In every which way, President Donald Trump has burned the city on a hill down.

Our optimism has run dry; anxiety is high. Trump never has a good word to say to unite us and spends much of his time on insults and lawsuits against hallowed institutions, like Yale University and The New York Times. He's the skunk at a NATO garden party.

He even called Great Britain, our closest ally, a "poverty-stricken disaster."

In a country of immigrants, he's locking up and deporting good people by the thousands with a secret police.

In a country of great natural beauty, he wants to build walls across canyons, rivers and parks to keep people out.

In a country where families have hunger on the table, he's cutting a million children's food benefits.

In an elegant capital, he is putting thousands of National Guard soldiers on the streets until 2029 and privatizing the public squares, lawns and gardens of the White House. These acts are intimidation and theft from the public good.

The war waged one winter night against Iran — without asking or telling Congress — is costing billions and will go on and on. Republicans resent defending it for no good reason.

Trump defined his job as "doing whatever I want," and nobody really believed him till now.

Nobody knows how bad it is unless you live here in Washington, where 300,000 dedicated career government workers lost their jobs in one fell swoop.

Nobody knows why he closed the Agency for International Development on his first day in office, costing millions of lives and much "soft power" around the world.

Pardoning the Jan. 6 mob makes sense through a Trumpian prism: They'll answer the call for political violence again. Make no mistake, he may use paramilitary force again. Jan. 6, 2021, brought the best three hours of his life.

In a summer of extreme global heat, he maintains climate change is a "hoax," and he stands against solar and wind power in favor of his fossil fuel donors.

His two pet Cabinet picks, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and Health Secretary Bobby Kennedy Jr., are as reckless and glib as he is, and he'll never rein them in. They look like central casting. And he enjoys how glib and defiant they are, along with their abysmal records on treating women, like their former wives.

We the people must speak out as things intensify and Trump wants American history to be whitewashed by the Smithsonian Institution. Seekers of truthful and tragic tales of the nation's journey since 1630 should be concerned because that's his next big move.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) is outraged the Museum of African American History and Culture is under threat; he vows any "erasing" of the treasure will not happen.

In general, the more Trump gets away with, like $2.2 billion in office, the more he gets away with. He probably thinks Americans are all fools with a Congress of suckers.

Here are some home truths: The people and their representatives just don't know how to defend democracy daily from lethal attacks from the president.

It seems clear he's getting revenge on everyone for losing the 2020 election, a brand iron on his dark, glowering psyche. If he's going all out not to lose the House in the 2026 midterms — and he is — it's to avoid a third impeachment.

There never was a president who declared war on democracy and government in our patchwork history. We're not perfect, and electing Trump is the proof of the pudding. But he has no concept of what "a city on a hill" meant to us once.

The author may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.

Photo credit: Andy He at Unsplash