What shall we sing to America to celebrate our 250th birthday? “This Land is Your Land” is a good one.

It’s been a staple for patriotic gatherings; we all know the first verse by heart. It sings the praises of this country’s beautiful landscapes and declares that it belongs to you and me. That is America.

That is what our founders wanted. But Woody Guthrie wrote this song in 1944, after experiencing the great depression, how workers and farmers and their families suffered. He wrote lyrics that the patriotic renditions cut out.

It’s not easy to remember or acknowledge those difficult times, but they are part of our history and the growing stages of our country. There’s this: “In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people, By the relief office I seen my people; As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking, Is this land made for you and me?”

Our country has had its ups and downs over its lifetime. It has at times held up those principles in our founding documents, our birth certificate that states we are a Democratic Republic. Other times, including now, we have not used our best judgement in selecting the kind of guardianship that upholds those principles upon which our nation was born.

We’re at a stage now that resembles another time in our past, and though the parties are switched, it’s happening again. Abraham Lincoln founded the Republican Party as a response to the wealthy elite southern Democrats who wanted the government to serve them only and protect their interests. They called Lincoln a radical, but Lincoln argued that his party was not radical, they were actually the conservatives, the ones who were protecting the Constitution and its principles. Lincoln stood for the people, and the advancement of the freedoms that our founders believed in and worked toward. This is how Lincoln viewed the role of government, and it wasn’t to make the rich richer; he said “The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all or cannot do so well for themselves in their separate and individual capacities. But in all that people can individually do for themselves, the government should not interfere.”

This is what the ones with the money and power called “radical” to scare the populace away from Lincoln and the Republicans.

It’s what the far right today, the MAGA party, which is controlled by the wealthy CEOs, is trying to do to protect and increase their power and influence. They’re calling the Progressives in the Democratic party “socialists” and “communists.” There is nothing more radical about what the Progressive platform is today than what traditional American values have been right along.

The MAGA party has been intentionally moving the center farther and farther to the right, and Citizens United opened up the opportunity to act by allowing their money to influence our government. The far-right ideology is one where the elites have control of the government and use it for their own devices.

Corruption is the name of the game. This is a form of fascism. The Overton Window (a scale which determines acceptable policies) has shifted so far to the right, that in order to keep voters behind the party, Democrats have clung to positions that are actually moderate rightwing, compared to America’s historic Liberal Democratic position.

So like the wealthy southern slaveowners, the billionaires of today are getting the party they control, which is unfortunately the party no longer of Lincoln, to use that same scare tactic, calling progressives Socialists and Communists. They want to instill fear so as to maintain control at the expense of the rest of us, when it is them that we need to fear. President Harry Truman said in 1952: “Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advancement the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called Social Security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.”

Remember why the founders fought for independence? Remember why they established a democratic form of government? What they wrote in the Declaration and the Constitution is the established, centrist position of our government. Not the rule of the 1% over the 99%, but We the People — 100%. The whole reason for a democratic form of government is to prevent the control of a few over the rest of us. From the highest ideals of the Enlightened founders, to the basic protection and preservation of home, family, and property, our country was based on the idea that every citizen should have the freedom and equality of opportunity to determine their own destiny.

Therefore, government has the responsibility to provide a level enough playing field so that every citizen can self-actualize. This is not giving handouts, it isn’t socialism or communism, it is providing the basic necessities of life, so that every individual can seek their goals. Basic necessities like healthcare, education, transportation, or utilities, which are used and needed by all should not be controlled by profit seekers but should be standardized and regulated. This is the position of those who describe themselves as Democratic Socialists. They are members of the Democratic party, not the Socialist party.

Socialism is a lot farther left than that. Progressives in the Democratic party, or Democratic Socialists, are economic capitalists, they believe in private enterprise and private property. They don’t advocate for the government to control the market system, just for the government to put in place regulations to restrain the excesses of capitalism which have caused the extreme wealth inequality, and to channel its uses of our tax money into creating opportunities for everyone, not just the greedy few.

Since Lincoln in the 1860s formed the populist Republican party, the majority vibe of the whole country could be described as Democratic Socialist, as we worked our way to more and more freedom and equality — up until the Heritage Foundation, DJT, Project 2025 and the rest of MAGA. They have abandoned the core principles of what it means to be American, to be a melting pot of cultures, to be a neighbor, to welcome along with the Statue of Liberty, to uphold our founding documents.

I will shock you by saying I support the Republican Party. Not the party of 2026, but the party of 1956, whose platform, led by Dwight D Eisenhower, included the following: rooting out corruption, expanding Social Security, broadening Unemployment Insurance coverage, better healthcare, investment in education, support of the United Nations and economic aid to other countries, maintaining a military only as a guardian of the peace, strong support of unions and collective bargaining, equal pay regardless of sex. They said, “Labor is the United States, as it is the men and women who create the wealth that is shared in this country, they are America”.

The far right is endangering the United States of America. Not communists.

To celebrate our 250th birthday, let’s read the Declaration of Independence — out loud. Let’s read it to America like a birthday card. Maybe if Bruce Springsteen sets it to music, we can sing it to her and participate in the party that wishes our historic Democratic Republic many happy returns!

Susan Bigler is a Sheridan resident.