The American Experiment Will Endure

To borrow from one of the greatest speeches in American history: “Two Hundred and Fifty Years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

President Lincoln gave this Gettysburg Address to commemorate the bloodiest battle of America’s Civil War. Over three long days, the fighting in those Pennsylvania fields resulted in more than 51,000 total dead, wounded, missing, or captured.

Lincoln noted that the war tested whether America, “or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

Now, 163 years after that bold question, I say the answer is resoundingly and unequivocally “yes.” And yet, many in the news, social media, opinion pieces, and poll responses doubt whether we can — or even should — still hold it together.

While our country certainly has challenges, such views are profoundly misplaced. Worse still are those who assert that our flaws are so overwhelming that our system of government — one that has lasted longer than any other similar one — is too broken to endure further.

I’ve felt that way at times too. Staying current on the news, where factions of the far left and far right incessantly shout past each other, is a hazard of this job. I recently asked a colleague to talk me out of thinking our country is on the verge of falling into the abyss.

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party pines for collectivism in all its forms, embracing candidates who identify by the mob-rule moniker “democratic socialist” complete with Marxist disdain for private property and capitalism. They seem to believe that voting to seize your landlord’s building because you think he charges too much for rent is something other than amoral theft. Add in the perennial blaming of Jews (now rebranded as Zionists to camouflage the antisemitism) and they’re light-years away from our constitutional ideals. 

I encourage readers to check out the website of the DSA — Democratic Socialists of America. They openly call for the replacement of our Constitution, abolishing the Senate, elimination of an elected president, and the end of an independent Judiciary. Appending the word “democratic” to the inherent authoritarianism of socialism doesn’t make it any less fundamentally un-American.

This isn’t some fringe group. Current elected members of Congress, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT), Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (MI), all proudly declare their socialist bona fides. And New York City voters recently elected current DSA standard-bearer and Hamas apologist Zohran Mamdani as their mayor. Our state isn’t immune from the socialist scourge, having elected Tristan Rader to the Ohio House of Representatives. In all, the DSA boasts having as many as 250 elected officials across the country. 

Also misguided are what some call the “woke right.” These are often inward-looking nationalists who blame liberals, minorities, immigrants — and of course Jews — for the problems they see. Despite broad support for “our troops,” they want the U.S. out of all foreign military conflicts. Such naïve isolationism only guarantees that our economic and political adversaries will fill the void, making wider conflict and American decline even more likely.

Soon after our nation’s founding, Presidents Jefferson and Madison dispatched the nascent U.S. Navy to stop Barbary pirates from seizing our merchant vessels and their crews. The opening lyrics of The Marines’ Hymn, “From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli…” commemorate the reality that the world is a dangerous place and that barbarism must be met with forceful and unwavering resolve. Our strength and prosperity have always included our willingness to defend our citizens and ideals at home and abroad.

While each faction sees the other as the enemy, their respective passion and prattle make them little more than twaddling twins. 

A sanity check was in order and it came in the form of a social media post from Brad Smith, a law professor at Capital University, former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission, and staunch free speech advocate. 

He wrote: “In all of world history [ours] is a system of unprecedented and unparalleled prosperity and freedom… To be an American in the first part of the 21st century is to be, by definition, amongst the luckiest people ever to live on this planet. We need to stop with this notion, growing on both left and right, that we need to "blow it all up."

So well said. 

We shouldn’t be the least bit envious of Europeans sweltering in the summer heat because their socialist-minded climate masters won’t let them have air conditioning. Nor should we fear the legal immigrant whose labors enrich us. And the fixation on Jews always ends badly for everyone. 

There’s not a single problem Americans face that requires abandoning the individual rights and capitalist system that have and continue to secure such freedom and prosperity for more people than any other — ever.

Fortunately, those rights are unalienable and beyond the reach of simple-minded majorities. It would be the epitome of hubris misinformed by ignorance for us to blow that up.