The Quarter Millennial creates a unique opportunity to reclaim our national self-understanding. This is of vital importance and I urge Donald Trump , and JD Vance , and others to take this seriously.
The public mythos of America, our civil religious expression, as practiced in schools and in mainstream culture, has degraded into a story of regret and bitter self-effacement. We have become a nation of flagellants, but without the possibility of redemption. A perfect inversion of the City on a Hill. Our heroes have become villains; our triumphs, tragedies. The protagonists in this current version of our story are the litany of the oppressed, and all told it amounts to little more than a blood libel against the great men, if humanly imperfect, who founded and made America. There is great power and meaning in civic celebrations like the Quarter Millennial.
This milestone is an opportunity to reset our
national narrative and self-understanding, to reassert the prominence of
certain heroes and episodes that have been maligned or neglected in recent
decades. Imagine art grants from the NEA for new monuments, perhaps 250 of them
around the country, to celebrate and memorialize our history, as told by us.
The great men and women who built and sacrificed and struggled and triumphed,
not merely for nostalgia's sake, but as guiding symbols for a new generation of
Americans dedicated to revitalizing our nation. Imagine a revival of the
Library of America via the NEH to publish a catalog of books, perhaps 250
volumes, curated by people who cherish rather than hold contempt for our legacy
and traditions, works of great literature to tell the complete story of the
American experience and reintroduce so much of the great writing that has been
buried under the weight of petty political sensitivities. Imagine art prizes,
film festivals, theater, music, a true revival of the American spirit through
creative undertakings, its optimism and courage. A celebration of the high and
the good. A celebration of the strong and the aspirational. A celebration of
the healthy and the capable. I know there is a temptation to cut administrative
spending wherever we can, and I assume public arts is an easy target for Elon
Musk and others. But I want to encourage these decision makers to consider the
possibilities here. This will all be relatively cheap, but the impact will be
profound and enduring. Opportunities like this do not come around often. People
are begging for a reset. The mandate to Make America Great Again is ultimately
a question of narrative. It is asking us to reach back into the past and
reconstitute how we perceive ourselves. We do this by authoring our own story.
There are many great patriots who can be called to this task. We are standing
back and standing by.
