The "No Kings" nutcases have been pretty silent when we, right here in these United States, hosted an actual king right here on our soil. On Tuesday, while hosting the United Kingdom's King Charles III (No, Rep. Omar, he's not the one-hundred and eleventh King Charles), President Trump made some statements that may well be among his best ever, noting the historical relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States — while throwing in a big, heaping serving of American exceptionalism.
The President said:
"Here in the shadows of monuments to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, honoring the British King might seem an ironic beginning to our celebration of 250 years of American independence, but in fact, no tribute could be more appropriate.
"Long before Americans had a nation or a constitution, we first had culture, a character, and a creed. Before we ever proclaimed our independence, Americans carried within us the rarest of gifts: moral courage, and it came from a small but mighty kingdom from across the sea. For nearly two centuries before the Revolution, this land was settled and forged by men and women who bore in their souls the blood and noble spirit of the British here on this wild, untamed continent. They set loose the ancient English love of liberty and the Great Britain's distinctive sense of glory, destiny, and pride. And that's what it is, glory, destiny, and pride.
"The American patriots who pledged their lives to Independence in 1776 were heirs to this majestic inheritance. Their veins ran with Anglo-Saxon courage. Their hearts beat with an English faith in standing firm for what is right, good, and true."
This is true and then some. Even today, after waves of immigration from places as far removed as Italy, Ireland, Germany, and China, America's culture retains much from our Anglo-Saxon roots. Much of our legal system is based on English common law. Beginning with the Magna Carta, the concept of rights sprang from Europe, most especially, from what is now the United Kingdom. We originally shared much more than just a common language.
The United Kingdom seems to be letting this slip away, now. But America? Not yet. The president continues:
"In recent years, we've often heard it said that America is merely an idea. But the cause of freedom did not simply appear as an intellectual invention of 1776. The American founding was the culmination of hundreds of years of thought, struggle, sweat, blood, and sacrifice on both sides of the Atlantic.
"Fate drew a long arc from the meadow at Runnymede to the streets of Philadelphia that ran through the lives of people born and bred on the British code that no man should be denied either justice or right.
"American patriots today can sing 'My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty' only because our colonial ancestors first sang 'God save the King.'"
No, America isn't just an idea. America is a nation. And America is, or is supposed to be, a people.
But the American people aren't a people in the sense that the Japanese people are a people, or that the German people are a people. Those are nations with long and great histories, but America is something else, a place where you are identified not by your national origin or ethnicity, but by what you do, what you achieve. Or at least, that's how things are supposed to be.
America, from the founding, was a nation of people who built, who worked, who explored, who did great things, because great things needed to be done. I think that, for the most part, we still are such a nation. Leave the huge, rabbit-warren cities and get out in the countryside, in the small towns, in the villages and townships and counties that make up what the urban elites contemptuously call flyover country, and you'll see a lot of that spirit. It's still alive. America is still here.
President Trump understands that. In this speech, we can presume that this statement was aimed primarily at one person: King Charles III, whose country is in danger of losing its culture, its people, and its way of life. Will it have the desired impact? That remains to be seen, but these words are something that should resonate with any American listening. And that, alone, made it worth saying.