Axar.az presents an article “My American Creed” by John Samuel Tieman.

Sometimes people renew their wedding vows. Today, I renew my belief in America, in democracy, in the republic.

America is an idea. Ours is a nation that isn't founded on a race or in a religion. Here, the idea came first. “We hold these truths … .” Then came the nation. The democratic republic is, in a sense, a belief. So what do I believe?

I hear people say, I hear people believe, “Make America Great Again.” And I agree. Sort of. But I don't know about the “Again” bit. I want us to become what we can be, greater in kindness, greater in tolerance, greater in democracy, a greater republic. But we don't have greatness now. We can. But we don't.

In 2023, the US infant mortality rate ranked 54th out of 227 countries and territories.

54% of adults have literacy below sixth-grade level.

A 2019 survey found that only 40 percent of American adults could name the three branches of U. S. government. A quarter of Americans surveyed could not name a single branch.

We are fifth in median income, ranking behind Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates, Norway and Switzerland.

One in five children in America is malnourished.

We are 48th in life expectancy.

We do lead the Americas, most of Asia and Africa, and all of Europe in the number of prisoners executed.

With a budget of $916 billion, we outspend the rest of the world in military matters. This number does not include the Veterans Administration.

And we lead the world in the number of people who think QAnon is news.

One in three Americans, 34%, say violence against the government is sometimes justified

We have, of late, become more racist, more anti-Semitic, more misogynistic, more homophobia, more xenophobic, more authoritarian, less inclusive, less democratic and less of a republic.

We didn't used to be like this. I'm not saying that we were ever perfect. I am saying that we used to strive to be a moral nation, indeed a Puritanical one. We weren't intimidated by intelligence. We aspired to become educated. We took pride in immigrants like Albert Einstein. We valued civil service. Archibald MacLeash was a poet, playwright, and an Assistant Secretary Of State. We built the interstate highway system. We didn't fear science. We didn't ridicule it. Instead, we walked on the moon and found a vaccine for polio. The nation gave birth to great artists – Walt Whitman, Arthur Miller, John Steinbeck, Scott Joplin, Tina Turner, Renée Fleming, Josephine Baker. My home state, Missouri, prided itself on having elected at the same time both Jack Danforth, a Republican, and Thomas Eagleton, a Democrat, to the United States Senate. My hometown, St. Louis, had two daily newspapers, the “St. Louis Glove-Democrat” and the “St. Louis Post-Dispatch”, the flagship of the Pulitzer empire. When I was a boy, we subscribed to both. We were informed by Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid and Walter Cronkite. We knew the difference between news, opinion, and political theater. But those days are gone.

I don't believe we need to make America great again. What do I believe? I believe we are a nation founded in ideals. We aren't a nation born of a race or a religion. We are a nation born of aspirations. We forever strive, fall short, and strive again. I could write a history of the United States by simply tracing our quest to live up to, and to constantly reinterpret, our foundational words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” We become retrograde when we want to repeat some imagined golden era. When we want to be great “again”, we cease to strive. We refuse the true challenge of our great republic, which is a pluralism in which we tolerate difference, care for the neighbor, welcome the immigrant, and constantly reinterpret “all men are created equal”.

Our challenge today isn't to make America great again. Our challenge is to strive for what America can be. Our challenge isn't to go back. Our challenge is to know what made us great in the first place and then move forward, to improve, to build upon what was great and aspire to an improved democratic republic.

These are dark days. We could, in a few years, see our democratic republic replaced by an authoritarian state. Thus is idealism all the more important now, today. Ideals are, in essence, tools. Such ideals need to be inspected because they have a practical application. The original draft of the Declaration, written by Thomas Jefferson, included the line “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable”. Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin debated “sacred and undeniable” and changed it to “self-evident”. Those words are heavy with meaning and depth. Now take, “Make America Great Again”. The phrase is banal. It defies thought. As soon as you try to engage the idea, as soon as you try to engage the premise, there's nothing there. But it's worse than thoughtless. It's actively vicious. The phrase plays into the anger of folks but does little to serve the nation. It serves the private ambitions of MAGA politicians.

Donald Trump has said repeatedly, “In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.” So how do we ensure that our democracy survives? Our institutions will not save the republic. Only the people will. Why? Because the institutions are the people. And that salvific action begins with the beliefs, the ideals, of the citizens.