Take a trip back in time with us, won’t you? We’re going back, far back, to Oct. 17, 1777. The day after the Redcoats burned Kingston.

Imagine yourself standing there among the ruins, the smell of smoke permeating the air and your city almost completely destroyed, along with everything you own that you couldn’t carry with you as you fled the British. What feelings are going through your mind? Maybe you’re thinking that this whole revolution thing might need a rethinking. If the king’s troops did this the first time around, what will they do the next time they show up on the Rondout? Or maybe you’re thinking that this shocking brutality showed by the British will only deepen your desire to break away and found a new nation based on self-government rather than bending the knee to a king.

As the United States gets set to celebrate 250 years of existence, your Editorial Team wonders if our ancestors could see what we, the people, have been up to of late, they might not have bothered with any of it. The big birthday is Saturday, but not everybody’s ready to party. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week found things that would make Uncle Sam cry: Almost two-thirds (64 percent) of respondents said they see American democracy in danger of failing. Over one-third (34 percent) said they don’t think this country will make it as one nation, indivisible another 250 years. And the whole “we are the greatest country in the world” thing, once an article of faith among Americans, has taken a serious dive. Only 30 percent of those polled said they still believe that, down 8 percent from 2017. Forty-eight percent see America as one of many great countries in this world of ours, while 21 percent aren’t sure or think we’re not a great country at all.

It is not your Editorial Team’s desire to break down the hows and whys of how American politics decomposed to where they are today. (We are on deadline, after all.) But as we mark a quarter-millennium of national existence, we have to also wonder if the 50 states can make it all that much longer. We have been talking past each other for ages but now we’re screaming past each other, our anger turned to fury, our patriotic feelings either embraced without question or shrugged off as unsupported by the historical record. Trying to understand the other side is now tantamount to treason. Compromise is seen as something only for the weak. We’re not quite at the brink like we were in 1861 but much more of this current political dynamic will bring us there, maybe as soon as this fall’s midterm elections. As a republic, we are at one of those quo vadis — where are you going — moments but none of the ways forward charted for us by our leaders look all that appealing. Happy Semiquincentennial, indeed.

But it feels wrong to write us all off as red or blue meanies. Americans are still a friendly, welcoming people. Maybe that’s closer to who we really are, as opposed to withered trolls twisted beyond recognition by our politics. While Americans are famously dismissive when it comes to the opinions of people from other countries, the mass amount of foreigners here for the World Cup offers us a useful perspective. One fan from Germany was quoted as saying this: “If you want to hate America, watch the news. If you want to love America, drive through it.”

Kingston has punched way above its weight since 1776. It produced Sojourner Truth, one of the leading figures in the national and global abolition movement. It produced John Vanderlyn, the first American painter that could hold a candle to his European counterparts. It produced George Sharpe, whose pioneering work in military intelligence was a big reason why the North won the Civil War. Kingston paid a very heavy price in the Revolutionary War and offered its citizens to be soldiers in every war we’ve had since. But as we take in the disheartening vista of America today, we have to ask — was it in vain? Were the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, etc. doomed from the start to be dragged down by the weight of our own contradictions? Or have we with our civic toxicity collectively fumbled the legacy left to us by our ancestors?

We don’t know. But we’re going to approach this landmark birthday in good spirits. We’re not going to get mad at anyone, be it the guy across the street singing along with “God Bless the USA” as he fixes his car or the organizer at our door trying to get us on board with the latest progressive plan to end capitalism in our lifetime.

Rather, we’re going to take a moment to touch grass, shake the bad vibes out of our bodies and appreciate, if only for a day, the freedom and opportunity this country still offers. We kindly suggest you do the same.