Founding father and second US President John Adams, who also happened to pass away on 4 July, believed 2 July would be celebrated by generations to come, as The Resolution for Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress then. Only a handful of delegates signed the Declaration actually on 4 July 1776, and many of them did so as late as August 1776.

The US became an imperial power in its own right by the end of the nineteenth century, specifically from 1898 to 1901, when it claimed territory or influence over no fewer than five islands outside its territorial boundaries: Cuba, Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines…Under the guise that is was America’s duty to spread the light of civilisation and democracy to the ‘backward’ people of the world, the former British colony took it upon itself to govern the peoples of Latin America and the Pacific—whether they wanted it or not.

A major problem with the structure of the EU is that it is not fully based on representative democracy. A case in point, notwithstanding the fact that EU Parliament members are elected by the citizens of the member states, EU leaders picked Ursula von her Leyen to replace Jean-Claude Juncker as the leader of the European Union’s executive branch behind closed doors.