The Making of a Great Nation

A Four Minute Read

Photo credited to Laura Walker

Virtually all of those living in the United States want their country to be “great.”  Sure, there are the handful of sick and sad folk who are filled with anger and disdain for virtually everything.  But there’s an overarching reason for why we have had record numbers of people trying to cross our borders. It hasn’t just been the all-too-common international turmoil, violence and environmental disasters that desperate people are fleeing.  Nor has it just been the insatiable demand for drugs in our society. And it hasn’t just been the pandemic-devastated economies around the world from which many are still reeling.

According to the Migration Policy Institute:

Since 1970, the number of immigrants and their share of the U.S. population has increased rapidly, mainly because of increased immigration from Latin America and Asia. This followed important changes in U.S. immigration law such as enactment of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which abolished national-origin admission quotas; the creation of a formal refugee resettlement program with the Refugee Act of 1980; and the Cold War-era grant of preferential treatment to Cuban immigrants. Other factors included the growing U.S. economic and military presence in Asia and Latin America, as well as economic and social ties with the United States’ southern neighbors and major economic transformations and political instability in countries around the world.

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A Land Notorious for Opportunity

Our economy is in the top tier when compared with the rest of the world.  How many industrialized countries have had a better economic recovery from the covid pandemic than the USA?  To which country do our “disgruntled masses” desire to emigrate?  Obviously, America and this experiment in democracy clearly need serious fixing, but this is not a failed nation.

We have had our ups and downs like every other democracy. However, with one exception, we have had a peaceful transfer of power for almost two and a half centuries!   That process, by definition, has always resulted in tens of millions of voters being disappointed once the courts have found no evidence of verifiable fraud.  It’s the nature of the beast that the losers must be high functioning adults and not spoiled kids if “peaceful transfer” is to continue to describe this process.

Our democracy has indeed been terribly corrupted by moneyed interests, but it has still survived for 248 years! And, as long as a critical mass of Americans love their country and democracy more than an agenda or a political figure, it will survive again in 2025. 

If voters recognize that they are basically choosing the most suitable CEO for the largest, most complex, and most powerful enterprise in the entire world, our democracy should prevail - not only through this January but for the four years to follow.

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To What Greatness Do We Aspire?

The challenge today is to get a quarter of a billion people to agree on what the word “great” actually means.  To many, a great nation would be characterized by a populace having the freedom to express themselves, chase their wildest dreams, and be themselves - as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. To others it might mean being driven by justice, compassion, or law and order. To some, great might mean returning to a white male dominated or Old Testament-Christian dominated country where “might makes right.” And then there’s any combination of the above.

To a small number, a great nation might be built around the teachings of a first century rebel known as Jesus. Ironically, his purported teachings about how “children of God” should live, are almost ignored by all too many 21st century American “Christians.”

But my personal suspicion is that the largest chunk of us would equate greatness with the accumulation of wealth and power.  Unfortunately, that pair of aspirations is as old as the first caveman’s club. And those aspirations are never peacefully sustained as millions of people are grappling for the same thing.

The so-called winners with the most riches and power don’t tend to be the sharing type. So limitless concentrations of wealth and power for some, translates to loss of wealth and power for others. And this income inequality, at some point, almost necessitates the progressive oppression of the masses.

The above concepts of our nation’s greatness certainly influence where we are today in this divided country. But I think there’s another important ingredient that we might take into account.

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The Ties That Should Bind

We are connected in at least small ways to all those who have come before us.  Be it the indigenous people who blazed trails over mountain passes five hundred years ago, the European settlers who came here with nothing, risking everything; the people who came here in chains to plough and harvest our fields a couple centuries ago, or the first-generation immigrants born here a year ago - they are all an integral part of the American Story.

The degree to which we can give credence to those complex, diverse, and interwoven stories will determine the fate of this potentially great nation, and for that matter, the fate of this superb planet.