There is no limit to the greatness of the future before America, before our beloved land. But we can realize it only if we are Americans, if we are nationalists, with all the fervor of our hearts and all the wisdom of our brains. We can serve the world at all only if we serve America first and best.
—Theodore Roosevelt
History does not teach fatalism. There are moments when a handful of free people breaks through determinism and opens new roads. People get the history they deserve.
—Charles de Gaulle
In 1949, the unanticipated victory of Mao Zedong’s Communist forces in the Chinese Civil War prompted a political cry in the United States: Who Lost China?
Nearly three-quarters of a century later, there’s a new question hanging in the air: Who Lost America?
There’s a looming sense that the United States has lost the plot. We’ve come unmoored from our history and vision and mission. Chinese dictator Xi Jinping conveys the sentiments of many: “The East is rising and the West is declining.“
Many Americans concur. Our polarized politics are marked by a view widely shared among partisans, that our national experiment may be one election away from existential catastrophe. Unsurprisingly, heading into the July 4th holiday in 2022, the Gallup Poll reports that a “record low” number of Americans are “extremely proud” of our country.
The generation of 1776 declared our nationhood and independence. Today, our actions and assumptions all too often declare our discord and decadence. In recent times the world witnessed the wanton vandalism and destruction of monuments to historic leaders, ranging from Thomas Jefferson to Andrew Jackson to Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglass to Theodore Roosevelt.
The January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol illuminated the moral chaos of our moment. For the first time in our long history, a sitting president of the United States stoked disorder amid the constitutional process of the transfer of power. Marauding throngs broke through barricades and pierced the veils of reverence of Statuary Hall.
Memorable courage was exhibited by members of the outnumbered, ill-equipped, unprepared security personnel on the scene. In indelible contrast, not one member of the Congress stood their ground against the marauding trespassers. Not one.
The world watched as our self-styled “leadership” class gave way amid a disheartening moment of truth.