There's never been a better time to be an American, yet so many of us aren't feeling it.

• Why it matters: It's not even close, by almost every empirical measure. We live longer, better, richer, healthier and freer than those before us.

Yes, we screw a lot up. Always have. Always will.

• But the yawning gap between our reality and how people feel about it is among the biggest macro issues facing us.

A "Behind the Curtain" video from Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen breaks down the divide — and goes deeper on what makes America rock.

• Watch. (Our thanks to executive producer Jimmy Shelton!)

This column is excerpted for AM readers from Jim's C-Suite newsletter. Share it with family and friends who are looking for some good news today:

Three trend lines going in the right direction give us a snapshot of America's progress.

We just hit peak Staying Alive.

• The U.S. overall death rate in 2025 fell to its lowest point ever recorded, thanks in part to a steep decline in drug overdoses. The rate dropped across virtually every age and demographic group tracked by the CDC.

It's not by accident that the internet, AI and most modern technological advances are American-made or American-led. This place is a startup — and innovation — machine.

• New business applications across America have averaged about 5.5 million annually since the pandemic. The average pre-COVID was closer to 3.5 million.

High-propensity applications — the ones that the Census Bureau flags as most likely to be successful — are also running well above their pre-pandemic levels.

Americans gave a record $617.2 billion to charity in 2025, according to Giving USA — more than any other nation, and consistently among the highest as a share of GDP.

• Share this column.

📈 If you're a CEO or on a CEO's team: Ask to join Jim's new weekly Axios C-Suite newsletter.

President Trump spoke to a rally last night at Mount Rushmore National Memorial in Keystone, S.D., in the Black Hills.

• Carved into the fine-grained granite above him are four iconic predecessors, symbolizing the "founding, expansion, preservation, and unification of the United States with colossal statues of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt."

Visitors rested in the shade of the Lincoln Memorial during an extreme heat advisory on Thursday.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani spoke from George Washington's desk at City Hall to mark America's 250th, surrounded by recently naturalized citizens.

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are married!

• The wedding was indeed at Madison Square Garden last night, despite speculation that the high-profile Manhattan venue was selected to misdirect people.

Swift's team spilled some of the deets of the grand but private affair: Both Swift and Kelce were dressed in Christian Dior outfits and Christian Louboutin shoes.

• Actor and comedian Adam Sandler officiated. Kelce's brother, Jason, was best man and Swift's brother, Austin, was "man of honor."

Diehard fans flew in from across the country to stand outside the barricades in the streets of New York and dance to Swift's hits.

Dozens of A-listers were spotted heading to the event, including big names in entertainment like Selena Gomez, Ed Sheeran, Jimmy Fallon and Hugh Grant and NFL stars like Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp and several Kansas City Chiefs players.

• Get the latest.

During the bicentennial hoopla of July 4, 1976, President Gerald R. Ford and other dignitaries traveled to New York for what the president called "the greatest Fourth of July any of us will ever see," writes AP's Lou Kesten, who was 13 at the time.

• Operation Sail was a floating parade of 16 tall ships and more than 100 smaller vessels from around the world — including the Soviet Union. The spectacle was a boon for the beleaguered Big Apple, proving that "New Yorkers could get along, even during difficult times," according to the Gotham Center for New York History.

📜 The AP writer's family lived in Newport News, Va., not far from the Historic Triangle of Jamestown Settlement, Yorktown Battlefield and Colonial Williamsburg.

• Ford and his wife, Betty, took a carriage ride through Colonial Williamsburg, which bills itself as America's largest U.S. history museum.

🚂 For history buffs who couldn't make the trip east, the American Freedom Train, a 26-car behemoth, toured all 48 contiguous states.

• 🎟️ My mom, Barbara, took me and my three siblings to the Freedom Train when it pulled into the Port of Long Beach, Calif.
• The Freedom Train displayed two centuries of artifacts: George Washington's copy of the Constitution, the original Louisiana Purchase, Judy Garland's dress from "The Wizard of Oz" and a moon rock. Merle Haggard released a song about it, "Here Comes the Freedom Train."
• eBay offers hundreds of bicentennial plates, glasses, beer mugs and bumper stickers. The government unleashed special quarters, stamps and license plates. Madison Avenue jumped in with bicentennial cereal, candy, beer and soda. You could get a different 7UP can for each of the 50 states.

📺 Broadcast television — we only had three networks — included CBS News' "Bicentennial Minute." Starting July 4, 1974, barely a month before President Richard Nixon resigned, it ran every night in prime time, presenting the news from 200 years earlier. It was so unavoidable that the sitcom "All in the Family" referred to it. "Saturday Night Live," which debuted in 1975, paid tribute with a "Bisexual Minute."

• On July 4, 1976, Walter Cronkite led the pack with 16 hours of coverage on CBS. "Bob Hope's Bicentennial Star-Spangled Spectacular" ("the show that took 200 years to produce") on NBC celebrated with Sammy Davis Jr., Captain & Tennille and Donny and Marie Osmond.

Keep reading.

U.S. stock investors brushed off any concerns from the Iran war to send major indexes to their best quarter since 2020, Axios' Matt Phillips writes.

• In the second quarter of 2026, which ended on June 30, the S&P 500 index rose nearly 15%, the Nasdaq Composite jumped more than 21%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased nearly 13%.

The second quarter also had the largest IPO ever — the debut of SpaceX, which saw its shares soar, slump and then rise again.

• Read on.

Wedding spending is up big time, Axios' Emily Peck reports, from new Bank of America Institute data.

• Average wedding-related spending per customer rose 8.5% through May this year compared with the same time last year, BoA says.
• That's more than double the growth rate over the previous two years.

💐 How it works: The bank's report categorizes spending as "wedding related" when it involves vendors offering venue rentals, catering, photography, flowers and apparel.

Yes, but: The study probably misses some things — like, say, the multimillion-dollar cost of renting out Madison Square Garden for your nuptials.

• Go deeper ... Read the report.

A Miami hotel is celebrating America's birthday with a limited-edition $250 "Lobster Dog" meal combo, Axios' Martin Vassolo writes.

• The deluxe dogs are on offer at Carillon Miami Wellness Resort's Fourth of July barbecue today. Each lobster dog features five ounces of spiny lobster tail torchons and smoked oyster remoulade, topped with half an ounce of caviar. For $250, you get two dogs and a bottle of bubbly.

Whatever your Fourth fare, happy grilling!