One of the first articles I wrote for The Daily Wire was a typically optimistic and cheerful piece titled “The United States Of America No Longer Exists.” It was not met with a warm reception by many readers, who understandably found it to be a tad bleak. Three years later, it brings me no pleasure to say, “I told you so.”

My basic thesis in that piece was that our country, though existing still as a legal and geographic entity, cannot be meaningfully described as “united.” We have nothing but the law and the land holding us together anymore. That is not enough to make a nation or a people. There needs to be something else. Some uniting principle. Some defining commonality that binds us. If we are going to be united, we must be united around something or by something.