MS NOW guest Eddie Glaude, an author and professor at Princeton, said Tuesday that he felt "great trepidation" about celebrating America's 250th anniversary because he felt the country is being "destroyed," and questioned what they were celebrating."Well, I've been struggling with what are we actually celebrating," Glaude told the hosts of "Morning Joe," adding, "I'm thinking about Donald Trump, kind of, in so many ways, blending his own kind of cult of personality with the celebration of the nation, and wondering what exactly are we celebrating? Is it a storybook version of America?""This idea that, you know, we are a beacon of freedom and that our perfection was secured in our salvation, or are we looking at the way in which our ideals don't match up to our practices, our current practices?" he continued."And so I'm really going into July 4, grappling with whether or not the ugly ghosts of our country have us by the nape of the neck, Mika."Co-host Mika Brzezinski asked Glaude if he still had hope in the country.DAVID MARCUS: AS THE NATION BICKERS, SMALL-TOWN AMERICA STILL LOVES A PARADEDr.
Eddie S.Glaude Jr., American academic and author, speaks onstage during the Young Professionals Plenary: 'We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For' during the National Urban League Conference 2025 on July 17, 2025, in Cleveland, Ohio.
(Unique Nicole/Getty Images)"I don't know, you know, how can I put this, that the country that made my life possible is being destroyed right in front of me," he said.Glaude argued that people who imagine the country as a "White Republic" were actively trying to make it so, and that diversity was no longer seen as a strength."I believe, in this 250th, we have to make a choice," he said."America, in many ways, has to leave behind [this] guaranteed innocence, Willie.
And confront who we actually are so that we can release ourselves into being otherwise.Otherwise, we're not going to make it to the other side of this madness, it seems to me." "...