What Makes America Great?
4/18/25
It’s a simple question that might be put to a seventh or eighth grade social studies class. The declarations in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution itself, our freedoms of press, religion, association. Our evolution away from slavery and towards civil rights laws. Our acceptance of LGBT and gay marriage. Our system of government ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’ put into practice with three co-equal branches of government. Our leadership of the free world both militarily and economically. Our democracy and our example of democracy for those around the world aspiring to be free. The Statue of Liberty and all that she epitomizes – welcoming the stranger, the immigrant, the others who have come to these shores and formed the melting pot that is America. Free markets. Free education. Economic opportunity no matter what economic class you were born into. Our leaders who (mostly) have led with ethics, morality and commitment to truth. Power for the good of the people and not the self-aggrandizement of the powerful. Our system of justice – innocent until proven guilty – Justice for all! Disneyland, Hollywood, MacDonalds, Chevrolet, Football. Goodness. Truthfulness. Liberty.
What makes America great? Fill in the blank: ______. There are so many good answers.
I grew up in South Africa. With the exception of Chevrolets, we didn’t have many if any of these markers of greatness. My friends and I yearned for all things America. The greatest prize for any of us was the idea of emigrating to the United States. In 1979 at the age of 14, I won the lottery. My parents announced that we were moving to America.
Sure, America has had her problems over the 45 years that I have lived here. All those things that a middle-schooler would say makes America great are not a reality. We are a work in progress. Sometimes one marker improves and another retracts. We are far from perfect. But no matter our flaws, at any point in time in her 250 year history, America has always been great. Our greatness lies in our efforts to fashion a more perfect union. And to this end – always striving to be better – we must be cautious not to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.
And so here we are in 2025, a flawed union wanting to be better. We are told to make America great again, but what this really tells us is that we lost faith in ourselves and our country, that we didn’t believe in our greatness, that we were prepared to throw out all that was good and sometime even great about our country in an effort to remake it completely in some new image, the image of a movement that has no resemblance whatsoever to the movement that was America these last 250 years.
The idea of MAGA is satisfyingly simple. America is flawed. We want it to be better. Let’s make America great again. Those who latch onto this pleasing idea would likely be ok with a more appropriate leadership message such as Make America Better. This would imply that we should find the problems that undermine the greatness we aspire to and tackle them singularly and effectively. Border crossings, immigration, debt, antisemitism, marginalization of ideas and speech on college campuses. Certainly, there is room for a policy-based approach to addressing the concerns of the people who elected the Congress and President to represent their interests and concerns.
But the implementation of MAGA is not this. In the name of making America great again, MAGA tears down everything that is America.
And I’m not just talking about the policy steamroller coming at us every day with one Presidential edict after another. I’m talking about the softer and no less important side of American greatness that is being caught up in the flood: Respect for the law, respect for the truth, respect for the Constitution, respect for freedom of speech, respect for individual liberty, respect for justice and due process, respect for ethics, respect for people with different ideas, respect for our allies. All these ideas that unquestionably define American greatness have been trampled with glee. Yes… with glee. It seems that the President and his MAGA faithful not only smash the fragile foundations of our American experiment, but do so with an abundant glee, free of concern or thought for the consequences.
There have been moments in history that parallel such willingness to trample all that is good in the name of addressing society’s ills. Humans are herd animals and herds can follow a leader whose direction they cannot discern in the moment.
We are less than 100 days into the implementation of MAGA. For those who might have remained “For Trump” (For MAGA) after 30 days or 50 days, their rationale might be understood. But at 90 days it is no longer an excuse to find common cause with parts of MAGA while dismissing other expressions of MAGA because they are uncomfortable or go too far. As Americans we must make a distinction between that which makes America great and that which needs to be addressed to make America better. And we need to recognize that Trump and MAGA fix nothing when this Presidency smashes everything.