Onward to greatness

Will America be a great nation or a mediocre one? Will we thrive in the second half of the 2020s, or will we merely survive?

These are the questions on Donald Trump's mind as he enters the White House for a second, hopeful term. Over the past four years, Americans have lost the space to dream; Trump seeks to change that. The 47th president of the United States aims to reinvigorate the bold, intrepid spirit of the American pioneer and usher in our nation’s next golden age.

“My message to Americans is that it is time for us to once again act with courage, vigor, and the vitality of history’s greatest civilization,” the new president declared in his second inaugural address. “The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation — one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations, and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons.”

“We will pursue our Manifest Destiny into the stars,” he continued, “launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars. Ambition is the lifeblood of a great nation, and right now, our nation is more ambitious than any other — there’s no nation like our nation. Americans are explorers, builders, innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. The spirit of the frontier is written into our hearts. The call of the next great adventure resounds from within our souls. Our American ancestors turned a small group of colonies on the edge of a vast continent into a mighty republic of the most extraordinary citizens on earth. No one comes close.”

“Americans," Trump added, "pushed thousands of miles through a rugged land of untamed wilderness. They crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the Wild West, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted billions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens, and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand. If we work together, there is nothing we cannot do and no dream we cannot achieve.”

“Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback.... I stand before you now as proof that you should never believe that something is impossible to do. In America, the impossible is what we do best. From New York to Los Angeles, from Philadelphia to Phoenix, from Chicago to Miami, from Houston to right here in Washington, D.C., our country was forged and built by the generations of patriots who gave everything they had for our rights and for our freedom. They were farmers and soldiers, cowboys and factory workers, steel workers and coal miners, police officers and pioneers who pushed onward, marched forward, and let no obstacle defeat their spirit or their pride. Together, they laid down the railroads, raised up the skyscrapers, built great highways, won two world wars, defeated fascism and communism, and triumphed over every single challenge that they faced.

"After all that we’ve been through together," an optimistic Trump maintained, "we stand on the verge of the four greatest years in American history.”

That is exactly the rhetoric an enfeebled nation needed to hear — the stirring, unabashedly pro-American oratory that could arouse the sleeping Republic to scale its next mountain peak of greatness.

We’ve come so far. Why stop here? We stand in the shadow of giants and history’s greatest heroes. Who said we can’t join their ranks?

Thank you, President Trump, for encapsulating the enduring spirit of American Exceptionalism. With God’s help, may we reignite the shining city on a hill and radiate in resplendent red, white, and blue for the world to see.

Onward to greatness!