The U.S. is just getting started.
Donald Trump can look forward to a retirement playing professional sports. The latest count on his primary endorsements has the president batting a thousand:
- U.S. House 101/101
- Senate 8/8
- Governors 8/8
Just for a reasonable comparison, the winners of the last three major sports championships were nowhere close to the president’s level of primary success:
- 2025 World Series: LA Dodgers were 93-69
- 2025 NBA Championship: Oklahoma City Thunder were 68-14
- 2026 Super Bowl: Seattle Seahawks were 14-3
It’s amazing how much one can lose and still win. And that is much of the story of the United States as she approaches her 250th birthday. I still remember Gerald Ford ringing a Bicentennial Bell in 1976. I couldn’t tell which looked more inanimate: Ford or the bell. Virtually every success story includes times of failure and doubt. I am in the middle of Victor Davis Hanson’s "The Savior Generals," and it doesn’t matter if it was Matthew Ridgway in Korea, David Petraeus in Iraq, or even William Tecumseh Sherman slashing his way through Georgia; each had losses of land and soldiers. Each succeeded in the task given him because the overall task was far bigger than one battle or piece of land. Ridgway knew that he would lose Seoul, but was not worried because he knew that the Chinese were overextending their supply lines. In four months, he reversed the Chinese mauling of American forces and settled near the 38th Parallel and did not again make MacArthur’s move for all of Korea. How many rockets blew up before Elon Musk got one to land perfectly?
America’s detractors, both internal and external, like to point out the country’s weaknesses or failures as proof of her lack of success. To date, 13 servicemen have died in the Iran War. And while each one is precious to family and country, relatively low losses on such a massive scale of attack are extraordinary. The same with airframe losses compared to the number of sorties. People who hate Donald Trump or America (and in most cases, it is “and” rather than “or”) will say that the U.S. is losing the war or that the losses are excessive. Smart people learn from successful peers; losers just kvetch from the corner. America is by no means perfect, but go look around and sell me on some country being better. Sure, some may have a lower cost of living, and there may even be those whose natural beauty could arguably be considered greater. But if you want to talk about the overall quality of life and the ability to make a dream come true, you won’t find any place close to the U.S. Twenty-three of the 30 most valuable companies in the world are American, and most of them were started by people in their dorm room, garage, or small office. My dad had a colleague who, in the 1970s, called Microsoft to discuss a problem with their pre-Windows operating system. Bill Gates answered the phone.
As the Republican Party becomes more clearly the party of Donald Trump and MAGA and not of mutant former Republicans, the Democratic Party is going through a similar metamorphosis. The party of JFK and Clinton (here seen together) is now the gulag of U.S. Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Whereas Republicans are moving back to founding principles that include less government, appreciation of God’s giving of our rights, and a focus on business success, the Democrats are trying to resuscitate Stalin and every failed Marxist idea from the past 100 years. Comrade Zohran Mamdani has set the groundwork for taking private property and adding it to New York’s holdings. The lady in Texas who suggested sending “Zionists” (code: JEWS) to ICE holding facilities may have lost her primary, but she has set the tone for the party’s future. It’s like when someone first swore on TV and the censor let it go; there was no going back from there.
And thus, as the U.S. starts her run to 300 years, it remains a place for the battle of ideas. That Democrats and their blood-brother RINOs in the Senate do not want to guarantee safe and fair elections might just suggest that their ideas are not so popular with the guy on the street. Donald Trump’s 117-117 primary success is due to his innate understanding of the American citizen. He has been on the winning side of 80-20 issues like guys in women’s sports, honest elections, etc., because he understands intuitively what Americans want. They want a safe and prosperous country where they can afford to live and their rights are not infringed upon by a lunatic cat lady who wanted to use “disinformation” to get them kicked off the internet. Looking at the 2024 electoral map, one sees that blue bastions are primarily in cities, while around 90 percent of the U.S. landmass looks Republican red. The Democrats’ ideas resonate with few who are not in on the take. One of the heads of Black Lives Matter allegedly stole over $3 million from the group’s account in order to buy a bunch of homes. At least she is a capitalist at heart. The people like Mamdani, Sanders, AOC, and angry Chief Lizzy Warren all praise redistribution of wealth while being fantastically wealthy themselves. Their program of endless illegal immigration and lots of free stuff never touches them personally. As Jeff Bezos recently noted, doubling his taxes will not get a nurse in Queens a higher salary. But it will pay for the gas for the private jet travel of our armchair socialists.
The U.S., still being a beacon of hope for people who want a better future, faces challenges at home and abroad. China certainly wishes to supplant the U.S. as the top economic and military power in the world. Its internal problems, including awful demographics and corruption, may never let it succeed in its “100-year marathon.” Iran will need additional kinetic treatment before it gets in line. And Russia is diminished but still not out of the game, though the loss of so many soldiers in Putin’s war with Ukraine will limit the projection of its power outward. Even with these and other worldly challenges, the greatest problem for the U.S. is the misuse of one of its greatest assets: federalism.
The U.S. having a structure that gives much of the power to states and local governments is a good barrier against an overbearing federal government. What we have seen, especially since the BLM riots of 2020, is that governors and mayors do not necessarily see their jobs as being related to making their constituents’ lives better. Rather, they often see their task as stopping Donald Trump and his MAGA voters. When the riots started, leaders in Minnesota and Portland did not rush to put out the flames. Rather, they saw political gain in letting riots grow. Tim Walz’s wife regaled how she opened the windows and enjoyed the smell of burning Target and other stores. By letting mayhem rule, they reasoned that they might help defeat Donald Trump that November. California made it illegal to ask for an ID to vote, thus guaranteeing election fraud in favor of Democrats. Border states often fought with the federal government to allow for continued uncontrolled immigration. While there have always been federal/state tensions, we now have the unenviable situation where local leaders plot how to advance the interests of the Democratic Party over the well-being of the nation. Is there a more complete definition of “house divided”? It’s not that the Democrats have an alternative and potentially better view of a future America. They don’t like what they see and wish to trash it and go Marxist.
Happy birthday, America. Your best days are still yet to come.