The United States of America turns 250 years old this week, defying the odds and defying the haters for over a quarter of a millennium. It’s time to take stock of where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going. It’s easy to be a doomer; look at this week’s reaction to a single court case on an issue we’ll eventually win. But then again, it’s always easy to throw up your hands and sob, “There’s nothing I can do,” thereby relieving yourself of the duty of action. That’s un-American.
Let’s not sugarcoat it: We have problems. We see communists elected to positions of authority in New York City, Los Angeles, Denver, and Washington, D.C. Polls show that many Democrats today appear to hate America more than they hate red meat, AR15s, and testosterone. Yet we also have the fresh experience of World Cup fans from around the world arriving in our great country and being knocked out by how impressive it is. And it is a great country.
But the question is: Can it be greater?
We’re not like any other country on Earth. We descend from people who left the relative comfort of their homelands to carve out a new kind of nation from a wild continent full of tornadoes, vast deserts, and fierce, warlike savages (That’s not a diss to Native Americans; it’s a recognition that those tough warriors were worthy foes, and their later service in the U.S. military is legendary.)
The idea of a “nation of immigrants” has gotten a bad name lately because of the illegal aliens, lazy chiselers, learing center entrepreneurs, and brutal criminals who dominate the headlines, while our ancestors—who did the hard, honest work of building the greatest country in human history—get pushed into the background. But our ancestors all came here, and they came here because they were special. America is special, born of a refusal to comply and an obstinate rejection of obedience. We rule ourselves. My upcoming new conservative novel, “American Warlord,” is premised on that truth!
Two hundred fifty years ago, a band of tough, courageous men declared independence from the most powerful nation on Earth and then fought a long war until they won it. That is our heritage. That is our past, and that must be our future. They built something never before seen on Earth. If you want your children to understand it, make them watch "The Thread of Liberty: Keeping Our Republic"—because they sure as hell won’t learn the truth from unionized public school teachers who are more interested in gender nonsense than in teaching honest history and civics. You must teach the next generation who we are. We have to know who we are because this government belongs to us, not the bureaucrats, politicians, corporations, or NGOs. We have a fight on our hands to keep it that way.
Progressivism is an ideology designed to steal what is ours and redistribute scraps to greedy constituencies in exchange for votes and power. It is the opposite of Americanism. It is anti-freedom, because genuine freedom means freedom from their yoke, and they cannot tolerate that. One of their favorite tools is running America down. If they can make us forget who we are, they can demoralize us, and then we're a soft target. Remember the 1619 Project? It was historically illiterate, written by clowns and pinko activists, and embraced by the gullible. Its purpose was never truth; it was propaganda meant to demoralize. “You didn’t build that,” Barack Obama’s notorious lie, was a vicious rhetorical stiletto strike: if you didn’t build it, it isn’t really yours, so they can take and redistribute it. We see the same impulse today in proposals like a “billionaires' tax” designed to establish the principle that what is yours is the state's. They will ultimately try to take everyone’s success, property, guns, speech, and independence.
But we’re Americans. They can’t have any of it.
It has been refreshing to watch international visitors marvel over things we Americans take for granted—whether a giant plate of BBQ ribs, a Buc-ee’s, free soda refills, ubiquitous air-conditioning, or the sheer wealth and power on display. They see citizens flying their own flag and warplanes thundering over sporting events and contrast it with their own nations’ sorry lack of patriotism. Their people have been taught to loathe themselves; we’re b****s and proud of it. We have shown what only we can do militarily in recent actions against Iran, and claims that we “lost” are nonsense. We’re rich, too. Our poorest state has a higher GDP than the country we broke away from in 1776.
Donald Trump was elected on the Make America Great Again platform, and the ruling class has always hated it. They are not patriots. They weaponize patriotism when convenient and discard it when it isn’t. They don’t love America; they love power.
Sadly, many such people hold office. They want to drive the country into the ground, as they did in Detroit—once the richest city in the world, now a Democrat hellscape of poverty and crime. They believe we deserve to live in squalor and fear. Without God, they fill the void inside themselves with a secular faith that casts us as villains so they can play heroes. They hate that we refuse to be led like subjects. We refuse because we are citizens who demand our God-given rights.
There is plenty to worry about: young people flirting with Leftism, global enemies, exploding national debt, unsustainable spending, and a disturbing willingness (revealed during COVID) to surrender freedoms on command. Some on the Left have shown that they are willing to go to lethal extremes to regain power— they murdered Charlie Kirk, and how many times have they tried to assassinate President Trump? I’ve lost count.
Spreading doom is easy. It is also weak and unnecessary. Courage, bravery, and feistiness are not dead in American hearts. Remember the pilot shot down in the Iran conflict? He never lost faith because he knew America would never leave him behind. We moved heaven and earth to bring him home. And we did. No one else could have, and no one else would've tried, except maybe Israel, which partially explains why it's hated too. Regardless, that's America.
The future? I believe Americans are going to take their country back. We are done being replaced by foreign invaders, taxed to support chiselers of every income bracket, and told we have no moral right to exist or govern ourselves.
It’s time for a new, non-violent political revolution. We reject the failures, lies, and corruption of a parasitic ruling class. In America, the ruling class should be the citizenry itself. The proper chain of command is: God, American citizen, politicians, bureaucrats, and other parasites.
We will not surrender our God-given rights enshrined in the Constitution—the rights to free speech and to freely worship, the right to keep and bear arms and defend life and liberty with righteous force, or any of the others. Leftists will not seize our property, nullify our votes, or turn this glorious Republic into a squalid dictatorship. Two hundred fifty years ago, a would-be tyrant sent enforcers to impose his will upon us. We shot them.
That’s incredibly based.
The future is bright. We will go farther, faster, and better than ever before. On this 250th anniversary of the United States of America, choose to be an optimist like the pioneers who faced far greater challenges and walked west anyway. Celebrate America's quarter-millennial birthday by declaring your independence from traitors, losers, and doom-mongers by being unapologetically American.
Happy 250th Fourth of July!
Ahoy, join me on the conservative Gulf of America Cruise that isn’t just a bunch of obsolete losers guzzling Zima on the Lido Deck! Larry O’Connor, Scott Jennings, and I are sailing the Caribbean this November on an epic voyage of discovery and owning the libs. All aboard this Salem/Townhall event! Sign up now!
BIG NEWS! Kurt’s next action-packed conservative novel, “American Warlord,” is out for presale now! Read Kurt’s Kelly Turnbull/People’s Republic series, including the latest "Panama Red," and follow Kurt on X @KurtSchlichter!