The onset of America’s 250th birthday should feel like a greater deal than it is.It should be, in the words of John Adams, “solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”Despite this moment, when Americans are largely feeling down about themselves, the world lately has found itself quite impressed by America.And yet 2026 has felt lethargic. America250 celebrations have mostly fallen under the radar or become subsumed into larger partisan divides. Even a local America250 lecture at my library devolved into a bully pulpit for a history professor to bark the “1619 Project” at a handful of seniors.Reid my lipsIf anything, there was active antagonism going into the weekend’s celebrations, with former MSNBC host Joy Reid sparking controversy on social media for dismissing the holiday as mournful and a mere “celebration of slave holders who freed themselves.” She continued, “Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice. I must mourn.”This is even reflected in statistics. Recent YouGov polls have found that the percentage of people who “are proud to be an American” has dropped from 83% in 2024 to 70% last month. That number drops precipitously farther among Democrats (58%), Independents (59%), and those between the ages of 18 and 29 (56%). 40% of respondents say “America’s best days are in its past,” while 62% of Americans do not unconditionally support their country, noting severe “problems in your country” in need of solutions.Certainly, the ongoing conflicts in Iran, Ukraine, Israel, and Minneapolis have put a damper on the public’s enthusiasm, but there is a creeping disdain at work as well. At a moment when Tucker Carlson, Hasan Piker, Nick Fuentes, and Zohran Mamdani alike have made startling gains attacking the heart of America’s institutional trust and credibility, those who are merely proud to be Americans may often feel alone or ashamed. Patriotism may feel hollow or alienating.Horseshoe theoryThere is a bipartisan consensus among the far right and far left that the status quo must be destroyed and replaced, whether that be by Marxist revolutionaries, white nationalists, or Catholic integralists. And despite their vast variety of opinions and backgrounds, they somehow all have an unhealthy relationship with Israel.Despite this moment when Americans are largely feeling down about themselves, the world lately has found itself quite impressed by America. The past few weeks have been replete with hundreds of viral clips of World Cup fans flooding into cities like Dallas and Boston, discovering not only the incredible kindness of Americans, but the incredible achievement of the nation we have built. A generation of young people, raised on American movies and shows about how much America sucks, is now discovering that it is a bigger and more beautiful country than they were led to believe.Americans often benefit from having their story told back to them by people outside America. Whether it is Tocqueville, Chesterton, Rand, Bono, or (God forbid) John Oliver, Americans often find their own story is best freshly told by outsiders or those who have lived outside it, usually because most of us have already forgotten it.Captain KirkIn his 1957 book “The American Cause,” the great conservative philosopher Russell Kirk lamented the strange discovery among postwar Americans that a generation of soldiers had just been sent overseas with a startling lack of knowledge about what they were even fighting for. Vichy French soldiers capturing American prisoners in North Africa were “astonished” by how “politically naive” the Americans were.“For most Frenchmen are passionately interested in political notions; while most Americans … are not,” writes Kirk.”One reason that the Americans … do not spend much time arguing over theories of politics is that for a very great while nearly all of us have been contented with our society and our form of government. We have not been revolutionaries since 1776 because we have felt that we have enjoyed as good a society as any people reasonably can hope for.”Kirk warned that this remarkable sign of America’s success was also a danger. A generation freed from the burden of having to reinvent the world would create an ignorant and illiterate generation that lacked any ability to defend itself on first principles, thus making them weakened and vulnerable to all forms of subversion. Particularly in moments of change and confusion, this would create opportunities for anti-American ideologies to run rampant, to “give Americans a bad conscience, and to give the United States a bad reputation in the rest of the world.”What really creates discontent in the modern age, as in all ages, is confusion and uncertainty. People turn to radical doctrines not necessarily when they are poor, but when they are emotionally and intellectually distraught. When faith in their world is shaken; when old rulers and old forms of government disappear; when profound economic changes alter their modes of livelihood; when the expectation of private and public changes becomes greater than the expectation of private and public continuity; when even the family seems imperiled; when people can no longer live as their ancestors lived before them, but wander bewildered in new ways — then the radical agitator, of one persuasion or another, has a fertile field to cultivate.America as beaconPresident Ronald Reagan famously said in his 1982 Memorial Day speech that America’s national anthem “ends with a question and a challenge. … Does that flag still wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?” This is a question Americans must answer every generation, because, as he said in a later speech, “Freedom … is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.”Is America still “a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home”? Will it remain that way? That remains to be seen. But as we find in the wisdom of George Washington, it will only be that way if we want it to be. As biographer James Thomas Flexner writes in his remarkable multi-volume work “Washington: The Indispensible Man,” Washington knew better in the Revolution than to approach the war as a battle of tactics and materials. He approached it rather as one of spirit and mind.Washington was, indeed, so little the dedicated soldier that he never regarded fighting the enemy as the fundamental means by which the Revolutionary War would be won. He demonstrated again and again his conviction that the crucial battlefields were in the minds of individual Americans. If the majority decided that they would be better off under renewed submission to the Crown, all military efforts to defeat the British would be of as little avail as trying to stop a river that was perpetually flowing. But if the people became staunch supporters of American rights that they would hold steadfast through any emergency, the British might well march their military might into the ocean.The war for the future of America is a battle over the hearts and minds of people, and if they freely choose to abdicate the American experiment upon the altar of despair and envy, that cannot be helped.A meaningful effortHowever, that does not mean that Americans who care about the fight for American republicanism can rest on their laurels. Nor can we give up hope and assume such an effort is pointless. We cannot take for granted that a generation that has learned most of its American history and civics from “Hamilton” is going to read the “Federalist Papers” and suddenly fall in love with classical liberalism, Judeo-Christian ethics, and the Electoral College.A meaningful effort to fight the ongoing radicalism of our times is necessary. This necessitates new organizations, new methods, and a renewed effort to instill trust in a mainstream institutional culture that Americans have largely lost trust in. It means teaching people why they should trust their institutions, while institutions put in the effort to make themselves trustworthy. It means outlining the nature of ordered liberty and the free market at a moment when people are confused and scared. We cannot take any of our principals for granted. We must explain them all to people who are hearing them for the first time. And if you’re not sure how, Kirk’s “The American Cause” is a good place to start.There is still plenty to love about America. It is still a great nation with a great effect on the world. More controversially, though, America is also a good nation. Sadly, Americans are terrible judges of our own character. Even if it takes soccer fans for us to recognize that, there is still hope for us.
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