OPINION:
Let me offer an obvious thought: The convictions of Hunter Biden and Donald Trump are not happy events for the United States. Whatever one thinks about the circumstances involved, the fact that a former president and the son of a sitting president were convicted of multiple felonies within the span of a few days is not a positive indicator of the health of the American experiment.
It doesn’t look any better if one considers our general societal discourse. Too much energy is spent online grinding personal axes and seeking to “own” the other person. Too little time is spent trying to understand what thoughts, values and sentiments motivate those with whom you might disagree. No time at all is spent considering one’s own flaws and shortcomings.
As that sort of societal attitude flows downstream, it infects and draws strength from politics. Think about our current presidential campaign for a moment. Has either candidate spent much time discussing a positive agenda for the nation? The current president has centered his campaign on “defending democracy” and creating a public policy structure conducive to abortion. Hardly a stirring call to national unity.
The challenger’s campaign has been more detailed, although the candidate himself routinely returns to the economy, immigration and the shortcomings of federal law enforcement. This is better than the incumbent’s, but it is still not really the kind of rhetoric around which citizens can rally.
I mention all this because one of my sisters recently challenged me to find reasons to be optimistic that did not involve “all that God stuff.”
She has a point. Political life in this country has been much better in living memory. The good news is that this nation is much more than its politics.
With respect to prosperity and opportunity, the United States, despite our government’s best efforts, is still the best. Our economy is the largest in the world by a considerable distance. The United States’ gross domestic product is about $30 trillion, while China’s is less than $20 trillion. The European Union? About $20 trillion as well, even though, as recently as 1995, the EU and American economies were about the same size. Eight of the 10 largest companies in the world are American.
How about innovation? The Chinese landed a probe on the moon in 2013, meaning they are only about 45 years behind us. The race for artificial intelligence — the next century’s commanding economic heights — is pretty much an America-only game at this point. Same with medical advances. Same with robotics.
Education? About 300,000 bright young students from China are in college or graduate school in the United States. Fewer than 10,000 Americans are in graduate school in China. About half of the top 50 universities on the planet are in the United States. A handful are in Europe. Four are in China.
How about population? Americans spend much time worrying about our lack of a southern border, as they should. But the fact that millions want to get here is pretty compelling evidence of our superiority. Entire nations in Europe are dying, and immigration there is a huge national security problem. Each year, the regime in Beijing experiences net out-migration of more than half a million people. Not a problem here — people worldwide are voting with their feet for the United States.
Understandably, some of us are a bit cranky and less than optimistic; it occasionally seems like things will never return to “normal.” That is probably right. Social media platforms have altered our world forever, and almost certainly not for the better.
The reality, however, is that whether we advance together or fail together is entirely up to us. We can choose to be great, as our ancestors who built this spectacular nation were great, or we can choose to fail. What makes America special is that kings, autocrats or ephemeral elites don’t set the tone and don’t really make the difference.
Just as they always have, ordinary citizens across the nation decide daily whether the nation will be great or not when they make decisions about work, raising families, supporting communities and churches, etc. The national government has nothing to do with it except occasional and unwelcome attempts to get in the way.
If the idea that our fate rests in our own hands — in your own hands — doesn’t make you optimistic, I’m not sure anything can.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times and co-host of the podcast “The Unregulated.” He is very optimistic about the United States.
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