On The American Spirit

All Americans reveal the spirit of America, whether they are native born or part of the immigrant background that helps to give this country the genius of new energies. The promise of America lies, in part, within the Pledge of Allegiance we so glibly rattled off during our days in school… “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” During the 1830’s, the French diplomat, Alexis de Toqueville, spent several months in America and wrote of the experience in Democracy in America. He admired the “rough earnestness” he found in Americans. Almost 200 years later that rough earnestness is still present, but we have grown a lot too.

We have learned that kindness and compassion heal, and that hatred and anger bring only death, if not to the body then certainly to the soul. We have learned that whiteness is no more nor less sacred than any other skin color or ethnicity. We know that our leaders lead “by the consent of the governed,” which is the nature of democracy, and not by authoritarianism. We choose to be governed, but we do not choose to be ruled. Americans, being who we are, will push back at any suggestion of imposed rulership by any leader, and it is good that our leaders remember this and do not transgress this innate fiber of the American being.

A great leader, Franklin D. Roosevelt, with the weight of the Presidency on his shoulders during the 1930’s, used the new technology of radio to try to calm and encourage a nation dispirited by the Great Depression with his Fireside Chats. That was leadership then. Today it appears that President-elect Donald Trump, with no sense of responsibility, seemingly uses thousands of tweets to inflame, insult and incite millions of Americans 140 characters at a time. This is leadership now.

America is guided by an ideal of collective and individual excellence for all, which it has not yet reached. Still, the ideal is always before us. This is the American spirit, and we will rise to it and live in it, or we will risk being overrun by trolls!