Nathan Reynoso 
Sunrise in Washington, D.C.
2 July 2026
By Kate Watters, Executive Director
As the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary of independence, we, at Crude Accountability, reflect on the meaning of this moment as we navigate the current chaos, faced with cruelty, corruption, and kleptocracy driven by a government that repeatedly acquiesces to an out-of-control executive who appears to fancy himself more a king than an elected representative of the people. It is a sobering place to be, and the consequences are staggering as we look at the impact of his actions.
Our government’s failure to address the climate crisis and the rollback of reproductive rights, minority rights, environmental protections, freedom of speech, fundamental freedoms, human rights of all people, and so much more dominates our thoughts as we reflect on the meaning of this time, and the responsibilities we hold as members of a nation founded on common ideas: we the people; to form a more perfect union; inalienable rights; government for the people, by the people, and of the people. These are lofty and weighty aspirations, and we are the stewards of these ideals.
It feels heavy. Take a breath, exhale, and feel your power, even in the face of all this muck.
Over the past 250 years, the words of the Founding Fathers have been challenged repeatedly to include all of us, not only the land-owning white men who wrote and signed the original documents and who were protecting their own interests. The words, “form a more perfect union,” still hold resonance as we strive to meet that goal, creating a larger and larger tent to hold the diversity that is the United States. We recognize that we fall short, even before the gutting of DEI, denial of reproductive rights, damage to our healthcare and educational systems, environmental and climate destruction, and the full-on assault on migrants in this country.
Since Donald Trump became president for the second time in 2025, 50 people have died in ICE custody and at least 2000 have been forcibly disappeared by ICE and CBP.
Attacks on academic freedom have intensified as political interference in university governance, curricular decisions, hiring practices, and research agendas has increasingly become a feature of contemporary US higher education.
According to Transparency International, the United States scores 64/100 in the corruption perceptions index, with a drop of 12 points since 2015, putting it on par with the Bahamas.
According to Freedom House’s “Freedom Score,” in 2026, the United States earned a rating of 81/100, down from 84/100 in 2025. Considered “free,” the US is on par with South Africa (81/100) and Suriname (81/100), and lagging behind Poland (82/100), Romania (83/100), South Korea (83/100), Mongolia (84/100), Australia (94/100), Argentina (85/100), Japan (96/100), Canada (97/100), New Zealand (99/100), and all of western Europe. Sobering.
Since January 2025, it feels as though so much progressive, necessary, and democratic work has been undone, and yet, this is not the first time we have been here.
In 1976, the country celebrated its bicentennial. Rocked by the calamity that was the recently-ended Vietnam War, disillusionment with the Watergate scandal, emerging from the worst economic recession since the great depression, on the verge of the Love Canal environmental health disaster, with violence in US cities around bussing programs to desegregate public schools, the country was struggling, and rights were tenuous at best. Roe v Wade was 3 years old then. Women had had the right to obtain a credit card without permission from their husband for 2 years. Title IX, ensuring equal access to sports for girls in public schools, was 4 years old. Shirley Chisholm, the first African American and first woman to run for president in 1972, was serving in Congress, a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus and the National Women’s Political Caucus. Harvey Milk was a year away from winning his historic seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The EPA was six years old.
In the intervening years, even with all the violence, inequality, environmental destruction, climate denial, and more, we have continued to lurch forward as a nation.
And we will continue to do so.
With integrity, perseverance, and solidarity, we will continue to pursue the goal of forming a more perfect union, a government by and for the people—all of the people. And we will exercise our rights to hold accountable those who violate the rights of those targeted by this administration.
So, we encourage you to own our independence. Speak up for justice, speak up for the environment. Speak truth to power, as the saying goes. Flex your activist muscles. Support your library, read banned books. Volunteer. Educate yourself. Write letters to public officials. Dance in the streets. Wear that funky whatever. Attend town council meetings. VOTE. And act. Reach out to your neighbor. Stay involved, even when it feels hard and hopeless. We will get there. We are in this together. We, the people.