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Chapter 1: What historical figures exemplify American resilience?
One of my favorite Americans who happened to be born before America was a country is Daniel Boone. Two years after America's birth as a nation, Boone was in captivity, having been taken prisoner by a Shawnee war party. He was in prison for months, and then he escaped. He made a daring escape.
He had to travel 160 miles through uncharted wilderness by foot and by horse in just five days, makes it back to his settlement in just enough time to warn them of a coming attack. Now, that story alone could be its own movie. It's already separated into three acts right there. And there should be dozens of movies about Daniel Boone.
Instead, there have been basically none, at least since the 1960s. But that story is just one anecdote from an absolutely amazing, mythic, and yet also real American life. Boone spent decades exploring and charting the wild American frontier.
He helped to blaze the Wilderness Road through the Appalachian Mountains, which would pave the way for settlers to make it into Kentucky, which then became a doorway into the West. Just 15 miles from their final destination on the Kentucky River, Boone's party was attacked by Shawnee warriors.
Two men were killed, and this echoed an incident from two years before when Boone was attacked by Cherokees as he tried to make it into Kentucky. And at the time, several of his party were killed, including his son. And yet two years later, here he was again, and this time he completed the task. And this, again, is just one chapter in an amazing, unbelievable, and yet real American life.
These are the kinds of stories that we should be talking about in the lead up to America's 250th birthday. We have a lot to celebrate and a lot to be thankful for. We are a nation built by some of the most extraordinary humans who have ever lived on the planet. And yet, as you may have noticed, America 250 has so far been a rather muted anticlimactic affair.
I mean, it's hardly been an affair at all. It's basically like not happening. There's very little national excitement for it. Very little is being done to commemorate it. And the few meager attempts to organize events around America 250 have been confused and disjointed and disorganized and frankly embarrassing. All the more so because it was not supposed to be like this.
Now, less than two years ago, if you can recall back that far, Donald Trump won the popular vote over Kamala Harris by several million votes. And to the liberal mind, to every true believer in the self-described party of democracy, this result wasn't simply shocking. It was unthinkable.
I mean, these are people who firmly believe to their core that the Electoral College was the only reason for the existence of the Republican Party to begin with. And of course, in truth, Kamala Harris's defeat was not difficult to explain. It turns out that no sane American wants to be told every day for years on end that America is a terrible country.
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Chapter 2: Why is America 250 celebration perceived as anticlimactic?
NBC News doesn't want to say that out loud, but it's true. And yet, all that being the case, I cannot absolve the administration of responsibility here because they have bungled this event as well. I mean, it's looking like we will not have anything close to the raucous, joyous, patriotic celebration that our nation's 250th deserves and that Trump promised.
And the blame for that failure can be cast in many directions. And anyone who says that the Trump administration itself is entirely blameless is just being a partisan shill, which I refuse to be. I mean, the fact is that even before the artists started dropping out of Trump's planned concert in droves, there was already a major problem.
The problem is that those artists were invited to begin with. You know, the administration had planned a concert featuring, and I'm not making this up. You saw it there on the screen. Milli Vanilli, Vanilla Ice, a few other washed up 80s acts, a rapper from 15 years ago called Flo Rida, and a couple other artists that nobody cares about or even knew were still alive.
I mean, the only thing sadder and more pathetic than a Milli Vanilli and Vanilla Ice concert getting canceled is a Milli Vanilli and Vanilla Ice concert that is not canceled. So the lineup made no sense to begin with.
It was a function of the conservative habit of pathetically latching on to any famous people who give you the time of day, even if they're only famous for being national punchlines, as is the case with, you know, Milli Vanilli and Vanilla Ice. And now that the worst musical artists in modern history are dropping out, the embarrassment is only compounded.
I mean, it's like asking the ugliest girl in school to the prom and getting turned down. So it's just like the ultimate humiliation. So what's plan B? How will the Trump administration pivot? Well, after a few more artists canceled their appearances, Trump posted the following message on social media. We'll put it up on the screen.
And I'm not going to read the whole thing, but the basic idea is that Trump says that he's more popular than Elvis in his prime, and therefore he's going to, quote, give a major speech rallying the country forward. We don't need any kind of musical performances or entertainment, Trump says.
He's just going to host an America is Back rally on Wednesday in Washington, which he says will be a, quote, wild and beautiful celebration of America. So, in other words, we get another stump speech from the president. Now, You know, yes, years ago, I was often entertained by Trump's speeches.
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Chapter 3: What factors contributed to the lack of excitement for America 250?
Most of the country was. He was saying things that no serious American presidential candidate had ever said before. But somewhere in the past half decade, the speeches have started sounding pretty familiar. And that's not even a knock against Donald Trump. It's an unavoidable fact of life that when somebody gives speeches for a decade, they lose their novelty at a certain point.
We've still never seen a politician give a speech like Trump, but we have seen Trump give a speech like Trump like a thousand times at this point. It's not the kind of main event that's going to draw in huge audiences. And more importantly, it's not the best way to highlight the achievements of this country going back hundreds of years. America 250 should be a party, a celebration.
not something that is about Donald Trump or where Donald Trump is the main act. And the fact is that, you know, nobody in the entire history of parties has ever wanted to sit and listen to a 90-minute speech from a politician. Okay, you've never showed up to a party and said, hey, this is great. When do the speeches start? You know, a political rally is not a party.
And what's more, several of the acts that pulled out claim they were doing so because the event was more political than they were initially told. Well, turning the event into a literal political rally would seem to legitimize their concerns. So Trump is handing them a PR victory on top of everything else. America 250 should not be about Trump. It should be about America.
And that's why, again, a Trump speech should not be the main event. Now, he should attend the events. He should be a guest of honor attending and being a part of it. It shouldn't be about him, though. Now, I'll be told, and I have been told, that, well, they tried. They tried to do it differently, but it didn't work.
Well, that's true, but the only thing they tried, as far as we know, was to have a concert featuring Milli Vanilli, Vanilla Ice, and Bret Michaels. I would humbly suggest that there is a lot of room in between a concert featuring geriatric one-hit wonders from the 80s and a rambling 90-minute speech from Donald Trump, okay? Those are not the only two choices on the menu.
For one thing, they could have a concert featuring military bands. That's an act that we know for sure the White House can book, and it would be vastly, vastly superior to both Vanilla Ice and a political rally. America doesn't stand for 250 years as a beacon of hope without brave men and women willing to put their lives on the line to protect it.
And when those men and women finally come home, they shouldn't be forgotten. That's why Pure Talk and its customers are raising $250,000 for America's Warrior Partnership. by the end of July.
America's Warrior Partnership works on the front lines of preventing veteran suicide, not through slogans or awareness campaigns, but by helping with real needs, housing, transportation, access to VA benefits, counseling, the practical things that can help veterans get back on their feet. And here's how you can help.
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Chapter 4: How did previous anniversaries unite Americans despite turmoil?
I've heard it said that America 250 is a flop because of partisanship. But they fought a civil war right before America 100, and that didn't stop them. So this is not about partisan squabbling or a bad economy or any of those things. The difference between now and back then is that the basic love for and pride in our country has not been instilled.
Entire generations of Americans today don't even know anything about their own history, much less do they feel any real attachment to it. I mean, how many people will listen to the beginning of this monologue and hear about Daniel Boone for like the first time? I think the percentage will be low because I have an intelligent audience, but the percentage is not zero. And it should be.
I mean, that's the problem. By the way, it's not like our past is the only thing we have to be happy about either. I mean, even today, we're doing far better at the moment than any Western nation. Unlike other Western nations, including Canada and the UK, we don't imprison people for offending the cult of transgenderism.
We don't murder people and harvest their organs because they seem depressed at the local Tim Hortons, unlike Canada. We have a growing economy. We're sending manned space missions farther into space than ever before. We have the best national parks in the world. It's relatively easy to start a business here. We're the world's only superpower.
Our quality of life is so high that everyone else is clamoring to get inside our borders. We're one of the few places where you can own a gun and defend yourself. We have individual states that would rank among the world's biggest economies. None of that was true in the 19th century.
So the current picture is not all doom and gloom, even though the media and the podcast circuit are motivated for different reasons, or maybe not so different, to tell you otherwise. And yet, whatever challenges we face today, and there are many of them, and they are really significant, there's no question that our history is undeniably great. We are a nation that was forged from nothing.
We defeated the world's greatest empire. We forged west into the unknown, vanquishing hostile Indians and conquering the wilderness. We fought a civil war only 90 years into our existence, which could have been the end of the experiment. Instead, we survived it, even thrived in the wake of the conflict.
Over the next century, we went on to become a superpower, win two world wars, build a transcontinental railway, an interstate highway system, the Panama Canal, landed a man on the moon, invented the light bulb, the airplane, the telephone, the internet. I mean, we're a nation of innovators, builders, inventors, pioneers. America 250 is about recognizing and appreciating all of that.
Now, if we no longer live up to the lofty standards set by our ancestors, and I don't think we do, that's no less a reason to mark the occasion. In fact, it's all more the reason. None of us today can hold a candle to the greatest Americans. And that's why our goal shouldn't be to put on a political rally or a concert of one-hit wonders.
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