Never Stop Loving America

New York — Downtown this far, the city doesn’t fully resemble the New York of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Empire State Building. A group of college-educated “public intellectual” types are gathered. Some of the New Yorkers among us had no recollection of being at this landmark, Fraunces Tavern, before. Did George Washington write his farewell address here? Or sleep here? No, but Fraunces Tavern should get partial credit. Washington was here, on December 4, 1783, to deliver a farewell to his officers. Americans are so awash in history, we can’t even keep track.

We were meeting to talk in advance of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It’s an occasion for more than a military parade. It’s an opportunity to remember who we are and why it matters. 

That same week, a priest in Nigeria was kidnapped after returning home from a mission to Alaska. (Sure, it’s Alaska, but the U.S. is missionary territory once again.) Despite some nonsense from international organizations aiming to cover up the obvious, the priest — and other priests and seminarians like him — was not targeted in Nigeria because of some nebulous climate change dispute involving herders. He was targeted because he is Christian, and Islamic extremists don’t want Christians to exist. It’s called an existential threat.

Getting out of Lower Manhattan, meanwhile, my Uber driver talked about all manner of things, including the recent rise of antisemitism. Although he is not Jewish, some drunk Canadians recently assumed that he was and called him cheap.  A Christian born in Brazil, he was offended on behalf of Jews and all people of goodwill around the world who treasure — and long for — the gift of religious liberty. He mentioned the irrational anti-Israel protesters with rainbow flags on campuses such as Columbia University’s. “Try that in the Middle East. Do you have to make any sense to be accepted to an Ivy League school today?”

Still, my driver loves the United States. He came in the ’80s, he worked hard and raised a family here. We may have historic amnesia. We may not know how good we have it or appreciate such privileges as the right to ignorantly insult people and hold idiotic signs. Still, he’d come here all over again. He doesn’t have a ton of empathy for people who are in the country illegally — and mentions some of the hotels around town that had recently been housing undocumented migrants — but he is grateful that Ronald Reagan gave him a second chance when he had let his visa papers lapse, back in the day. Like Israel, Reagan may not have been perfect, but he’ll defend both until his dying day, he tells me. Israel, because it tries democracy — and in the midst of people who want it obliterated. Reagan, because he gave him a chance at a better life.

Much earlier in the day, America’s most famous bromance seemed to die. Elon Musk took to his platform, formerly known as Twitter, to tell us that Donald Trump was named in the infamous Jeffrey Epstein files. Former Trump official Steve Bannon urged the president to have the federal government seize Musk’s SpaceX. So he can no longer show NASA what can be done? We seemed, once again, to be living a never-ending reality TV series.

Amid the political absurdities, Luma Simms, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, born in Baghdad, posted Independence Day fireworks on social media. “I still love America, man.” I asked her what she meant. “What I still love about America, even in the midst of difficulties and embarrassment before a watching world, like the public fight between Elon and Trump, is its spirit to be better and do better,” she said. “America’s faults and mistakes can be very public sometimes, and that’s part of that Wild West spirit duking it out in the streets — it is unafraid, gets up, dusts off, gets back on its horse, and rides off to do whatever job awaits. I love that part of the American spirit.” She added: “I love that there are many Americans that still love America. Immigrants can’t assimilate into a country that hates itself. The reason I was able to assimilate growing up is that I was surrounded by a local culture that had a thick identity; it was a confident American culture.” And even “with political public fighting, the country is expansive enough physically and culturally that it still makes it possible to have a normal local life.” Last but not least, Simms loves America “because we still have a sense of humor.”

And with that, she reminds me that Saturday Night Live’s 50th-anniversary season is over, and we’re not going to see Mike Myers reprise his role as Elon Musk for one more, farewell address to his DOGE/White House experience. So we will have more time to prepare for America’s 250th and remember why she is worth fighting for — even if by fighting we mean taking our stewardship duties more seriously than we have lately. It’s not a laughing matter. Liberty is fragile. But oh so precious. And when it is seen as such, we realize it’s not libertine and self-serving but magnificent and self-giving.

Let’s get some of the history straight so we can celebrate it and pass it on to a generation that may just come to treasure it. And never forget that — as expressed in Washington’s actual farewell address — “of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.