OPINION:
Former President Donald Trump in last Thursday’s debate described the United States as a “failed state” and a “Third World nation.” That’s unfortunate and — happily for its citizens — inaccurate.
Are we perfect? Of course not. Human beings are not perfect nor perfectible. We are all touched by original sin. Consequently, all of our endeavors and institutions will be less than perfect. Our history is marked, like all others, by its share of failings.
Our history is defined by our nation’s many more moments of greatness. The United States is still — despite the best efforts of her adversaries, both domestic and foreign — the greatest nation on the planet and almost certainly the greatest nation in human history.
To the extent there is a modern world, we created it. The harnessing and generation of electricity. Airplanes. Assembly lines. Affordable cars and trucks. Production and refining of oil. Plastics. The revolution in agriculture has allowed humanity to feed billions of people. The computer. Television. Movies. Refrigeration. The light bulb. The internet. Air conditioning. More medical breakthroughs than can be counted that have saved and improved billions of lives. There are more, a lot more, but you get the idea.
At the moment, the United States is the leader of the world. We have the world’s largest economy by a considerable amount, most of the world’s best universities and a disproportionate share of the truly innovative drive and capability on the planet. About half of the Nobel Prizes in the sciences have gone to members of teams working out of American universities.
The world’s language is English. The world’s currency is the dollar, despite the heroic efforts of the federal government to ruin that. The world’s entertainment is disproportionately American, with at least the top 30 grossing movies of all time originating in America.
Finally, as has been noted before, people all over the world vote with their feet every year. About 1 million people migrate legally to the United States each year, and 3 million appear at what used to be our southern border illegally each year. Those people are about half the migrants on the entire planet.
While you may have mixed feelings about that phenomenon, it would be much worse if people were fleeing our nation, as they would be doing if we were truly a failed state or a Third World nation.
Let’s assume that Mr. Trump meant that the United States is a great nation with a failing national government. That would certainly be closer to the truth and more defensible. The federal government — as constructed by both parties over the 50 years since Watergate — has been unable to balance its budget (it has run a surplus only four times since 1974); has been unable to win wars, secure or even recognize the borders; failed to interdict the drug trade; targeted its own citizens, their representatives, and the media for illicit surveillance; shipped taxpayers’ cash to regimes in places such as Iran; destroyed the confidence of citizens in the public health system, and on and on.
As we think about our nation’s past and future this July Fourth, let’s remember that we have had many moments when our republic was in grave danger. Yet we have always emerged stronger. An important part of being president in addressing the challenges that we face is offering a positive vision for the future built on a clear-eyed but optimistic assessment of where the nation is and where it needs to go.
We are not a failed state, but we may become one unless our failed government is fixed.
• Michael McKenna is a columnist for The Washington Times. He worked in the Executive Office of the President during the Trump administration.
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