The United States, the American People, Donald Trump, even myself: we have all been humbled over the last four years. Or the last sixteen years … or the last thirty years.
And we needed it.
Over thirty years ago, following the end of the Cold War and the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States emerged as the leader of the pack in a once-bipolar world. The Soviet Union collapsed, socialism sluffed off, free enterprise became commonplace as the solution to all our problems, and the liberal democratic process was winning. “It is the End of History” Francis Fukuyama (arrogantly, short-sightedly) prophesied.
Of course, history didn’t stop, and we had lessons to learn.
Some suggest that this fantasy of global liberalism came crashing down on September 11, 2001. Let’s not forget February 26th, 1993, when Islamic terrorists attempted to topple the World Trade Center by detonating the foundation of one tower to crash on the other.
Islamic terror replaced the adversarial communist regimes as our enemies. America was complacent, prosperous, secure in its secular liberalism. Instead of remembering what made the West the best--the Gospel, our Judeo-Christian heritage, Biblical truth, our reliance on a Living Savior instead of humanist self-reliance—we got self-righteous and self-satisfied. “We beat the Russians! We are the only players on the World Stage!”
Thus it seemed that there was nothing left to fight but ourselves.
But that was never the case. Marxism's vision of a stateless, nationless world dominated by class conflict never emerged, but Pan-Americanism would never work, either. An America-defined globalism not only offended other nations, but it undermined the American citizen and the American experiment.
With an obsessive focus on free trade, cheap labor, making money while ignoring national identity: borders, language, culture; faith, family, freedom—Americans witnessed the wonders of the American dream turn into an elite fantasy that only the rich and politically connected could enjoy.
We got arrogant, then fearful and angry; we stopped believing in what really made America great. We forgot who we are. We needed to be humbled.
And what is humility? A Biblical definition is apropos, I think:
“For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” (Romans 12:3)
American Exceptionalism is a real thing. We the People of the United States should be proud of our heritage. That recognition does not justify American supremacism, however. Nor does it mean our safety, security, or sovereignty depends on what other countries do and believe.
The United States embraced some humiliating defeats not just on September 11, 2001, but in the waning year of the George W. Bush administration, when risky financing and over-extended loans inflated housing prices and unleashed the Great Recession.
Instead of taking stock of where we were wrong, we went with a false messiah, Barack Obama, who chimed: “We are the change we have been waiting for.” But we were the ones who caused our own downfall. How could we make changes if we would not change?
From this self-righteous refusal to own our failures came the Occupy Movement, Black Lives Matter, and the Re-radicalization of Race. Obama long harbored bitter disgust for the United States, and he seduced the American public. Under the Obama Administration, humility was minimized and disparaged, for sure. One of the most repeated words in the 44th President’s speeches was “I.” It was all about him, and to hell with America.
And the country was humbled for the worse. Obama called us all racist, insisted that we needed the government to run our healthcare. He exhorted us to flood our country with “undocumented immigrants” so that we could pay back for all the wrongs that American imperialism had caused. America fell into decline.
Then came Trump, and with him the mantra “Make America Great Again.”
He talked about God, restoring America’s previous glory. But was that something he could do himself? Not at all. In too many ways, his first term had some of the hallmarks of amateur hour. He surrounded himself with bad advisors, went with tired ideas, and didn’t transform the Art of the Deal into the Art of Governing.
Election 2020, with COVID, George Floyd, massive spending, and a frustrating Congress, did not help matters. Americans still had not learned their lesson.
We need God. We need Biblical truth. We need to restore our Judeo-Christian heritage, our Anglo-American legal traditions, and our Revolutionary legacy.
Thus came America’s further humbling under bumbling Joe Biden. Defined by Biden-Harris’ arrogant incompetence, suffused with dementia and DEI, America became weaker, worn out, and wasted, all while witnessing the Left’s culmination of all their wishes. Obama got his third term.
Then Trump ran again. He faced challenges from the right because he hadn’t gotten the job done. Perhaps those challenges shaped his second-term determination. Then came the assassin’s bullet, which changed the course of history in our favor.
Trump has acknowledged: “God saved my life.” And why? “To Make America Great Again.”
His Second Inaugural speech was all business, with a clear reliance on where his—and our-- power comes from: God.
Trump is a different man, acting like the President I wanted in 2016, whom I had anticipated DeSantis would be.
Like Homer’s eponymous hero, Trump is a man of many turns, and he’s turning out real results. Ulysses has come home. He has finished off all the suitors, he has his wife Penelope, and the gods are smiling at him. He learned his lesson. He gets it.
President Trump 2.0 has accomplished much of what we had expected in 2017, and more. Trump now knows his limits, and he knows what he can—and must—do. That is true humility.
If his supercharged successes continue, it makes all the disappointments, frustrations, and confusions of the previous six years worth the aggravation.
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