{"id":18988,"date":"2026-07-27T16:38:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T11:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=18988"},"modified":"2026-07-27T16:38:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T11:38:48","slug":"america-at-250-why-the-us-is-doing-better-than-americans-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=18988","title":{"rendered":"America at 250: Why the US is doing better than Americans think"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div xmlns:default=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" id=\"zephr-anchor\">\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\"><em>This story was originally published on June 29 in <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/the-highlight\/493227\/welcome-to-the-july-issue-of-the-highlight\"><em>The Highlight<\/em><\/a><em>. To get access to member-exclusive stories like this every month, <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/support-membership?itm_campaign=article-header-Q42024&amp;itm_medium=site&amp;itm_source=in-article\"><em>become a Vox Member today<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">America in the summer of 1976 was not in a good place.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The president who presided over the country\u2019s bicentennial, President Gerald Ford, only had the job because the previous president and vice president had resigned in disgrace, making him the sole US president who was never actually elected. The Vietnam War had ended in defeat and disgrace when Saigon fell the year before, after the deaths of nearly 60,000 American servicemembers. Inflation hit double digits in 1974 and stayed ugly, unemployment sat near 8 percent, and economists had to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.federalreservehistory.org\/essays\/great-inflation\">invent a word \u2014 stagflation<\/a> \u2014 for an economy that seemed to encompass the worst of both worlds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Given all that, you might assume the national mood leading up to the 200th anniversary was grim. And, yet, on July 4, 1976, something strange happened: Americans threw themselves a hell of a party.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">In New York Harbor, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gothamcenter.org\/blog\/operationsail-zy4la-6h6h4-tlwga-allfs-5gpbn-p8hkk-gewm2-86weg-453lp-rtg9j-b4nt8-f2n45-2s22f-kmea4-5jtmm-a2l5n-ljflg-bbjh6-82t6p-w9slx-nhf8r-egskg-7mja9-rk27k-bwgya-x8sb6-9ejss-b9tem\">more than 200 tall ships sailed up the Hudson<\/a> for Operation Sail, drawing an estimated six million spectators \u2014 the largest crowd in the city\u2019s history. Ford reviewed the fleet from the deck of the aircraft carrier <em>USS Forrestal<\/em>. It was the same scene up and down the country that day:<a href=\"https:\/\/www.history.com\/articles\/american-bicentennial-1976-photos\"> parades in small towns<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.upi.com\/Archives\/1976\/07\/04\/Capital-throngs-see-fiery-finale-to-Bicentennial-Fourth-celebration\/6252395864170\/\"> fireworks over the National Mall<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.presidency.ucsb.edu\/documents\/proclamation-4446-bicentennial-independence-day\"> church bells ringing in unison at 2 o\u2019clock<\/a>. It was one cathartic day of celebration after a decade that had offered little reason for it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">And when pollsters asked people how they felt about the country\u2019s future that year, the mood was, improbably, sunny. A <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/711842\/250-years-say-founders-disappointed.aspx\">Roper survey<\/a> found more Americans were optimistic than pessimistic about the future by a nearly three to one ratio. More than <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/711842\/250-years-say-founders-disappointed.aspx\">three-quarters told Gallup<\/a> the nation had already achieved at least a fair amount of its founding ideals. Somehow, a nation that was in the middle of a genuinely miserable decade looked in the mirror and liked what it saw.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Jump forward 50 years, to this year\u2019s 250th anniversary, and you\u2019ll find the vibes flipped. Roughly 60 percent of Americans tell pollsters the nation is on the <a href=\"https:\/\/civiqs.com\/results\/track_country\">wrong track<\/a>. A majority say its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2026\/05\/15\/a-majority-of-americans-say-the-countrys-best-years-are-behind-us\/\">best years are behind it<\/a>. About three-quarters think today\u2019s children will end up <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/global\/2025\/01\/09\/views-of-childrens-financial-future\/\">worse off than their parents<\/a>. Asked a version of that same founding-ideals question from 1976, 77 percent now say the founders would be <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/711842\/250-years-say-founders-disappointed.aspx\">disappointed<\/a> in what we\u2019ve become.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">But just as they were in 1976, the vibes don\u2019t match reality. Set the mood aside and look only at the numbers, and the country that felt so good in 1976 was, by the most important measures, a worse place to be alive than the country that now feels so terrible on its 250th birthday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p><h2 class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\">Start with whether you\u2019re alive<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Let\u2019s start with the most basic test of how a society is doing: how long its people live.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Life expectancy at birth in the US was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/data\/hus\/2016\/fig06.pdf\">72.6 years in 1976<\/a>. In 2024, it reached a record high of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/pressroom\/releases\/20260129.html\">79 years<\/a> \u2014 an extra six and a half years of life. At the start of life, a baby born now is <a href=\"https:\/\/data.worldbank.org\/indicator\/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN?locations=US\">far more likely to survive<\/a> its first year than one born during the Bicentennial, while cancer, once nearly a synonym for a death sentence, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/491138\/pancreatic-cancer-asco-daraxonrasib-trump-administration\">now kills a much smaller share of the people it strikes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The US made those gains by stopping some of its worst habits, things that were commonplace in 1976 . You might have seen the Bicentennial celebrations through a cloud of smoke, as cigarettes were woven into ordinary life \u2014 on airplanes, in offices, in hospital wards \u2014 and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lung.org\/research\/trends-in-lung-disease\/tobacco-trends-brief\/overall-smoking-trends\">roughly 37 percent of adults smoked<\/a>. Today, it is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/484165\/smoking-tobacco-cancer-health-centers-for-disease-control\">closer to one in 10<\/a>, and it keeps falling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/418849\/heart-attack-deaths-cardiovascular-disease-progress-medicine\">heart disease<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lung.org\/research\/trends-in-lung-disease\/lung-cancer-trends-brief\/lung-cancer-mortality-(1)\">lung cancer<\/a> that were connected to all that tobacco have receded with it. Add seatbelts and airbags, better trauma care, and cheap drugs that lower cholesterol and blood pressure, and the result is a country where the things that were most likely to kill an American in 1976 are less deadly now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The America of 1976 sat at the leading edge of a brutal crime wave; the murder rate would <a href=\"https:\/\/bjs.ojp.gov\/content\/pub\/pdf\/htius.pdf\">peak in 1980<\/a> and stay high for more than a decade. By the early 2020s, however, violent crime had fallen back to roughly a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2024\/04\/24\/what-the-data-says-about-crime-in-the-us\/\">50-year low<\/a>, and homicide rates this year <a href=\"https:\/\/jasher.substack.com\/p\/2026-will-likely-have-the-lowest\">may end up at a record low<\/a>. And the single most dangerous thing most Americans do \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/lutzie43.org\/part-4-a-challenge-to-corporate-america-driving-is-the-most-dangerous-thing-we-all-do-daily-so-why-dont-companies-address-it\/\">get behind the wheel of a car <\/a>\u2014 is far less likely to kill them, with the death rate per mile driven now a <a href=\"https:\/\/injuryfacts.nsc.org\/motor-vehicle\/historical-fatality-trends\/deaths-and-rates\/\">fraction of what it was at the Bicentennial<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p><h2 class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\"><strong>The country got cleaner, and richer, and fairer<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">In 1976, the air in American cities carried lead, an honest-to-God neurotoxin that was pumped out of every tailpipe of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.columbia.edu\/itc\/sipa\/envp\/louchouarn\/courses\/env-chem\/Pb-Rise%26Fall(Nriagu1990).pdf\">more than 90 percent of American vehicles<\/a> that used leaded gasoline.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Rivers literally caught fire: The Cuyahoga in Cleveland had <a href=\"https:\/\/clevelandhistorical.org\/items\/show\/63\">burned so many times<\/a> it became a national joke, and Lake Erie was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1976\/07\/25\/archives\/efforts-to-clean-up-great-lakes-gain-but-new-problems-emerge.html\">widely written off as dead<\/a>. And things were bad outside Ohio, too. In Los Angeles, the smog got thick enough to keep kids inside at recess and erase the nearby mountains from view.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Since 1970, however, the combined emissions of the six main air pollutants the EPA tracks have fallen <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/clean-air-act-overview\/progress-cleaning-air-and-improving-peoples-health\">78 percent<\/a> \u2014 even as the economy <a href=\"https:\/\/fred.stlouisfed.org\/series\/GDPC1\">nearly quadrupled in real terms<\/a>, the population <a href=\"https:\/\/fred.stlouisfed.org\/series\/POPTOTUSA647NWDB\">grew by tens of millions<\/a>, and Americans <a href=\"https:\/\/afdc.energy.gov\/data\">drove far more miles<\/a>. That split, with growth going one way and pollution the other, is one of the least celebrated but most consequential triumphs of the past half-century, the product of legislative efforts and technological response. And lead? It\u2019s essentially <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/healthresearch\/epa-lead-pb-research-air\">disappeared from the air<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">And it\u2019s not just economic or environmental statistics that have improved; society advanced, as well. Women now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2024\/11\/18\/us-women-are-outpacing-men-in-college-completion-including-in-every-major-racial-and-ethnic-group\/\">earn the majority of college degrees<\/a>. The Black poverty rate sits <a href=\"https:\/\/jbhe.com\/2025\/10\/the-racial-gap-in-poverty-rates-in-the-united-states-is-expanding\/\">near a record low<\/a>. Support for same-sex marriage is <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/710810\/support-lgbtq-issues-remains-down-peak.aspx\">now the norm<\/a> \u2014 maybe the single biggest social change from 1976, when homosexuality <a href=\"https:\/\/www.equaldex.com\/log\/11538\">was criminalized in most states<\/a>. Pick a metric more or less at random, and the line usually runs the right way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">This is not a matter of cherry-picking a few flattering numbers. It is the overwhelming direction of the evidence, across health, wealth, safety, rights, even the basic cleanliness of the physical world an American walks through every day. Measured against its own recent past, the US is in some of the best shape it has ever been.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">So what\u2019s with the bad vibes?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p><h2 class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\"><strong>A more perfect union doesn\u2019t mean perfect<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Well, some things genuinely got worse, and they are not insignificant.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Americans\u2019 faith in their government has collapsed;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/politics\/2025\/12\/04\/public-trust-in-government-1958-2025\/\"> fewer than one in five<\/a> now trust Washington to do the right thing, down from solid majorities in the 1960s \u2014 and the country is more polarized than it was in 1976. Democratic decline and even collapse <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/shorts\/0ftlkAhl0t8\">is a live threat<\/a>. Those economic gains I highlighted above have flowed disproportionately upward. The top 1 percent\u2019s share of income, <a href=\"https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/grapher\/income-share-top-1-before-tax-wid\">near a historic low in 1976<\/a>, has since roughly doubled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Climate change barely registered in 1976. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has since climbed from <a href=\"https:\/\/gml.noaa.gov\/ccgg\/trends\/\">around 330 parts per million to about 427<\/a>, and warming will only get worse in the future. And buying a home increasingly feels out of reach for many. By 2024, a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jchs.harvard.edu\/blog\/housing-unaffordability-soared-new-highs-2024\"> record share of households<\/a> spent more than a third of their income on housing. (Notably, though, the percentage of Americans who own a home <a href=\"https:\/\/www.advisorperspectives.com\/dshort\/updates\/2026\/04\/28\/home-ownership-rate-q1-2026\">is slightly higher<\/a> than it was in 1976, and those homes are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/new-home-bedroom-bathroom-fancy-larger-2022-1970s-census-bureau-2023-11\">much larger on average<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">These are real problems, but they remain exceptions to a broader half-century trend of improvement. And a country that scrubbed the lead from its air and put out smoking can overcome new challenges, as well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Which brings us back to a tale of two birthdays. In 1976, Americans had less of nearly everything you can count, and, yet, they reported feeling good about the future anyway. In 2026, we have more, and we don\u2019t.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Just as it can be for a person, a country\u2019s mood is a poor instrument; it measures the story we are telling ourselves more than the lives we are actually living. For all our pessimism about the state of the nation, more than three-quarters of Americans say they are <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/1672\/satisfaction-personal-life.aspx\">satisfied with their own lives<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The Americans crowding New York Harbor in 1976 were cheering a country that was sicker, dirtier, more dangerous, and less free than the one we live in now. But they were right to cheer; the line was already bending the right way, and it kept bending. It turns out a nation can travel a long way, even while it is convinced it is going nowhere.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\"><em>A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News newsletter. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/pages\/good-news-newsletter-signup\">Sign up here!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"_1tzd3in0 _10sa9om11\">\n<p class=\"_1tzd3in1\">You\u2019ve read <!-- -->1<!-- --> article<!-- --> in the last month<\/p>\n<div class=\"_1tzd3in2\">\n<div class=\"_1tzd3in3\">\n<p class=\"_1tzd3in4\">Here at Vox, we&#8217;re unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you \u2014 threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_1tzd3in4\">Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a<!-- --> <!-- -->Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.<\/p>\n<p class=\"_1tzd3in4\">We rely on readers like you \u2014 join us.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"_1tzd3in5\"><img alt=\"Swati Sharma\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"59\" height=\"69\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent\" srcset=\"\/_next\/image?url=%2Fstatic-assets%2Fheadshots%2Fswati.png&amp;w=64&amp;q=75 1x, \/_next\/image?url=%2Fstatic-assets%2Fheadshots%2Fswati.png&amp;w=128&amp;q=75 2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/_next\/image?url=%2Fstatic-assets%2Fheadshots%2Fswati.png&amp;w=128&amp;q=75\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"_1tzd3in7\">\n<p class=\"_1tzd3in8\">Swati Sharma<\/p>\n<p class=\"_1tzd3in9\">Vox Editor-in-Chief<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This story was originally published on June 29 in The Highlight. To get access to member-exclusive stories like this every month, become a Vox Member today. America in the summer of 1976 was not in a good place. The president who presided over the country\u2019s bicentennial, President Gerald Ford, only had the job because the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/platform.vox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2261337055.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C3.4530397026953%2C100%2C93.093920594609&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}