When we talk about the Founding Fathers, we’re usually just talking about the Big Five: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton.
Of course, these men deserve our veneration. But Jefferson, Madison, and Washington are synonymous with the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and presidency, respectively. Adams and Hamilton both have award-winning Broadway musicals and popular 20th century biographies that keep them top of mind.
But what of the other Founders, the men who thought, fought, and wrote this country into existence? In honor of America’s 250th birthday, The Daily Wire asked lawmakers, writers, and historians to draft a new Founding Father starting lineup. The only rule: they couldn’t choose one of the Big Five. Here are their picks.
<h3>Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives</h3>
Frederick Muhlenberg was elected to serve as the very first Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives by the First Congress in 1789, and was the first signer of the Bill of Rights. An ordained Lutheran minister, Pennsylvania delegate to the Continental Congress, and former 3rd Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, he was well prepared to accept the great privilege and challenge of leading and establishing a brand new institution.
Shepherding our great deliberative body through its formative days was no small task and required tremendous vision, skill, and patience. Muhlenberg was up to the task, and effectively crafted the rules, procedures, and protocols of Congress while actively serving in it. Because he and his colleagues had to travel treacherous or nonexistent roads on horseback, he was forced to delay the first meeting of Congress by a month until a quorum was reached. In August 1789, he cast the deciding vote for the location of the nation&#8217;s new capital.
While the speakership has changed considerably since Muhlenberg wielded the gavel, his efforts to construct a Congress capable of governing itself, debating openly, and exercising a check on the other branches of government were essential. As we celebrate America’s 250th, we do well to remember the wisdom and invaluable contributions of our founders and the unsung heroes who set our nation on its course to become the greatest in history.
<h3>Ben Shapiro, editor emeritus, The Daily Wire</h3>
Robert Morris was the greatest entrepreneur of the Founding generation. He bet his entire fortune — the largest in the country — on the riskiest startup the world has ever seen: the United States of America itself. Morris lived out the saying “freedom isn’t free”: you can proclaim your self-evident truths, but if you can’t pay your army, the British win.
Morris had every reason in the world to sit the Revolution out, hedge his bets, and stay rich. Instead, he became one of only two men to sign the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. Morris risked it all because he understood the American experiment was worth more than his own fortune, or even his own life. That’s not a businessman’s calculation. That’s closer to love than anything else.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-show-mini-doc-robert-morris?utm_campaign=founding&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=iterable&amp;utm_content=email_blast_creative00098_na">WATCH: BEN SHAPIRO ON ROBERT MORRIS</a></h4>
<h3>Dr. Ben Carson, president, American Cornerstone Institute</h3>
George Mason doesn’t come off the bench; he’s a starter. Mason’s thinking about liberty and the best way to structure government had an outsized impact on the Founding. To take just one example, the Virginia Declaration of Rights might be the most important but least appreciated document from the time. Too few Americans have even heard of that document. If you have never read it, take a minute and do it now; you’ll see that it was basically the first draft of both the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. True, Mason did not support the Constitution, but his objections to the Constitution — based on concern about too powerful a federal government — seem prescient given how much power Washington has aggregated for itself. George Mason isn’t the B-team; he should be talked about in the same breath as the other giants of the Founding.
<h3>Dr. Larry P. Arnn, president, Hillsdale College</h3>
You could no more put together an alternative starting five for the American Founding than you could for the 1991 championship Chicago Bulls. But if asked what secondary founders deserve attention, Benjamin Rush and Robert Morris come to mind. Rush, a Philadelphia physician, was a leading opponent of slavery and a great advocate of education in addition to being an ardent revolutionary. Morris, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant, took on the impossible job of Superintendent of Finance during the Revolution and played a critical role in getting arms to American troops in the field. But these men themselves recognized the superiority of those on the starting team. Rush said of Washington, “There is not a king in Europe that would not look like a valet de chambre by his side.” Morris, when asked by Washington to serve as the country’s first treasury secretary, declined and recommended Hamilton.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/could-donald-trump-finally-dismantle-the-deep-state-ronald-pestritto-thinks-so">READ MORE: HILLSDALE PROFESSOR EXPLAINS HOW DONALD TRUMP COULD KILL THE DEEP STATE</a></h4>
<h3>Daniel McCarthy, distinguished fellow in conservative thought at the Heritage Foundation</h3>
No one can replace the greatest of our Founding Fathers, but if we lost all record of them tomorrow, we might try to approximate the effect of their ideas and sensibilities in combination by looking to James Otis and Samuel Adams in place of Jefferson; Robert Morris, who was Washington’s first choice for Treasury secretary, in place of Hamilton; Roger Sherman, a wise constitutionalist, in Madison’s or John Adams’s stead; and James Wilson instead of Benjamin Franklin to supply some Pennsylvania principle. No one can compare to Washington, but John Marshall might occupy the place of a great Virginian profoundly committed to the Union. These less appreciated figures would give us a strong sense of our founding, though they would also remind us of what we were missing without the most renowned names available.
<h3>Richard Brookhiser, author, The Hero Returns: Lafayette and the Legacy of Revolution</h3>
For all the brilliance of the founders, not many of them understood economics. Tench Coxe, a Philadelphia merchant, did. He assembled facts and figures for Alexander Hamilton&#8217;s “Report on Manufactures,” and might have filled his shoes had Hamilton not existed. He later became a supporter of Thomas Jefferson, so he was also adroit politically. Nathanael Greene was also widely acknowledged for his military brilliance, losing every battle he fought against Cornwallis in the Carolinas yet driving him to Virginia and ultimate defeat at Yorktown. Georgia awarded Greene a plantation for his services, where he died of heat stroke after the war. Had he lived he might have made an excellent Secretary of War.
<h3>Troy Senik, author, A Man Of Iron: The Turbulent Life And Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland</h3>
Because he didn&#8217;t sign the Declaration of Independence, John Dickinson is always portrayed as a coward, the jittery man blind to the glory of the moment. The irony is that he walked into the Second Continental Congress arguably the most prominent advocate for colonial rights in America.
Dickinson did not oppose independence. He opposed declaring it before the preconditions for sustaining it were in place. No foreign alliance had been secured. The Articles of Confederation were nowhere near complete. The military situation was uncertain at best. His argument was methodical, not ideological: do these things first, then declare.
What happened next proved him right about virtually everything save the final outcome. The country barely survived the early days of the war, and only through a sequence of events so improbable that it would have been folly to plan for them. Had things gone south, Dickinson would have been remembered as Cassandra. Instead, he became a footnote in a story he helped write.
John Dickinson knew he was destroying his reputation by resisting the rush to declare independence. But he did so anyway because he believed the country&#8217;s long-term survival mattered more than the passions of the moment. It&#8217;s a sober patriotism to ask the questions nobody wants to hear rather than to give the hosannahs that everyone expects. Dickinson asked those questions, was overruled, and was later proven right. What had he done in the interim? Put on a uniform and fought for the cause anyway.
We could use more cowards like that.
<h3>Brian Anderson, editor-in-chief, City Journal</h3>
That’s easy: If Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, and Hamilton were unavailable, my first draft pick would be James Wilson. One of the Constitution’s principal architects but now less well-known than the Big Five, Wilson argued that America’s liberties rest on more than individual rights; they also grow out of a moral order discoverable through reason and grounded in natural law.
Big themes: Rights and duties are inseparable, liberty means self-government rather than license, and political authority flows directly from the people because all persons are naturally equal before that higher law. Wilson offers a distinctly American synthesis of natural rights, civic responsibility, and constitutional self-government that in my view deserves renewed attention.
<h3>Ryan Williams, president, the Claremont Institute</h3>
John Quincy Adams was only 11 years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed, but he would go on to a long career as senator, Secretary of State, Minister to Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia, and finally, president. After Washington’s peerless inaugural example, JQA remains, to this day, the greatest foreign policy strategist and diplomat of American history. For a continued restoration of a truly America First foreign policy, all roads lead through JQA.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-editor-of-the-most-popular-edition-of-the-federalist-thinks-its-more-important-than-ever">READ MORE: THE CLAREMONT INSTITUTE&#8217;S CHARLES KESLER ON WHY THE FEDERALIST PAPERS MATTER</a></h4>
<h3>Daniel Gullotta, assistant professor at the Ohio State University’s Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society</h3>
While I&#8217;m sad most people don&#8217;t know who Gouverneur Morris is, it&#8217;s a lot of fun telling people who he was. Just mentioning he had a peg leg usually gets people&#8217;s attention. But his role in the Constitution, crafting the opening &#8220;We the People,&#8221; is something people should know just as commonly as they know Jefferson was the drafter of the Declaration. He was also arguably the most anti-slavery Founding Father (just read some of his speeches during the compromise debates). He also refused to leave France during the Reign of Terror while serving as our minister, despite the danger. Then there&#8217;s the crazy way he died, trying to clear a urinary blockage with a piece of whalebone from his wife&#8217;s corset. I know everyone says this person or that person needs a movie or miniseries, but come on, there&#8217;s just no part of his life that isn&#8217;t compelling.
<h3>Mark Helprin, author, “Elegy In Blue”</h3>
We&#8217;re sorely in need of Benjamin Franklin, maybe a few dozen of him, to correct the abysmal ignorance and inexperience of today&#8217;s &#8220;Yutes,&#8221; who know virtually nothing and yet are powered by the energy of the young and destined to run the zoo. And it is a zoo. Franklin made use of his long experience and inherent brilliance to take under his wing Adams, Jefferson, and a lot of others, guiding them with practical and long-lasting results. Maybe I say this about the younger generations because I&#8217;m in my 80th year and am falling prey to chasing them off the lawn. But, really, they can hardly speak English, the girls&#8217; speech sounds like frying eggs, and they know so little that they buzz around communism and fascism like moths around a flame. You know what happens with moths and flames.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/he-turned-the-royals-into-a-joke-his-take-on-america-is-anything-but?trueLinkId=75JIYEMEAhD1KHqlEouqVfPC%2Fc5LDaS1niXzcEeobct2bv%2FJcUHC%2BLs8PvnWg1HDBGj%2FUEf2tfG%2B%2BQqbHoPtag%3D%3D&amp;trueLinkTs=1782577908&amp;trueLinkExpiry=43200">READ MORE: A CONVERSATION WITH MARK HELPRIN, AMERICA&#8217;S GREATEST LIVING WRITER.</a></h4>
<h3>Brenda Hafera, Assistant Director and Research Fellow, B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies</h3>
Mercy Otis Warren was an exceptional woman who contributed to the founding of an exceptional nation. A staunch republican, she depicted the happenings in her native Boston through plays and poems intended to drum up support for the patriot cause. The list of her correspondence was a &#8220;Who&#8217;s Who&#8221; of the Founding generation, including John and Abigail Adams, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson, enabling her to write the only Anti-Federalist account of the War of Independence. That opus, along with her thoughtful and uncompromising defense of the importance of morals and manners, justly earned her the designation, &#8220;The Conscience of the American Revolution.&#8221;
<h3>Anastasia Boden, Director of Constitutional Scholarship at Pacific Legal Foundation and the host of the In Dissent podcast</h3>
James Wilson has largely been forgotten. He deserves better. Wilson&#8217;s argument that the people, not the government, are sovereign justified not only rejecting Parliament&#8217;s taxes but breaking with Britain altogether. A Scottish immigrant steeped in the Scottish Enlightenment, Wilson helped popularize the radical idea that the people — not kings or Parliament — are the ultimate source of political authority and are fully capable of governing themselves. Wilson also played a leading role in shaping <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-can-sue-the-government-right/id1896779544?i=1000772988868">Article II of the Constitution</a>, strengthening the presidency with the counterintuitive goal of protecting liberty. In an era of debates over democracy, federal power, and constitutional government, few Founders have more to teach us.
<h3>James Patterson, author, “Why Postliberalism Failed”</h3>
The Founders we admire today were stark personalities and prolific writers, men who overshadowed impressive figures we tend to forget. One is John Witherspoon, the only member of clergy to sign the Declaration of Independence and teacher to James Madison, who gave both a religious and intellectual heft to the Revolutionary cause. As a Catholic, I have to recommend Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, a major financier of the Revolution, and a fierce advocate for republican politics and religious liberty. And then there’s Roger Sherman, who was something of an unsung workhorse from the start of the Revolution through the early Republic years. He opposed slavery, and he was the chief author of the Connecticut Compromise that gave us the bicameral Congress we have today.

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14 Lawmakers, Writers, And Historians Pick Their Favorite Forgotten Founding Fathers

America 250

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My Dearest America,
From across your northern border, from a nation that has enjoyed the serene luxury of your shadow and your shelter, I write to you on the occasion of your 250th birthday — as a grateful beloved and not some moralistic scold or resentful neighbor. For I am acutely aware that the liberties I enjoy, and the clarity with which I know myself free, are gifts of your thought, your daring, and your existence. I am a Canadian woman, yes, but in the profoundest sense that matters — one which appeals to nature and not to passports — I am your daughter.
Others will say you are a “propositional nation,” while some still cling to the hope that you are a “heritage nation.” Both miss the point, because each misunderstands the revolution behind what you really did and who you really are. The radicalism of your proposition lies in its claim to be true by nature. In brief, you are and will be true in all times and places. You did something unprecedented: you took equality and liberty out of the realm of myth, custom, and historical accident, and you wrote them on the tablet of nature itself. “All men are created equal.” You said that what you claim depends not on particular English habits, Protestant temperament, or colonial grievances; it depends on the soul.
That is why I, a foreigner, can claim you with gratitude and seriousness. The moment you say “created equal,” you obliterate the boundary between your citizens and the rest of mankind — not politically, but philosophically. You announce that the standard by which regimes are to be judged is man’s eternal nature and not tradition, blood, or geography. And if that is true, any regime — yours, mine, or any other — that repudiates that standard becomes an enemy not merely of Americans, but of humanity itself. This is why your existence is more than a political fact; it is a philosophical revolution.
You are called arrogant for speaking of yourselves as a “city on a hill.” But your most profound audacity is your humility before nature. You dared to assert that the truths upon which you rest are not yours. They do not belong to Boston or Philadelphia. They are not an American custom; they are a human truth. You did not create the equality of men; you discovered it. You did not grant inalienable rights; you recognized them. That is why you are, and must be, a light to other nations.
The light you bear is not the sentimental glow of humanitarian feeling, which rises and falls with fashion. It is the light of nature—a light that flattens false hierarchies and exposes tyrannies as both false and unjust. It is the light by which a peasant in China, a dissident in Iran, and a woman in Canada can quietly measure her rulers and know whether they are legitimate. It whispers to the soul: You were not born to be a subject. You were not born to be a means. That whisper is your greatest weapon.
You are the New Zion and its new chosen people. This is not to say God prefers your soil or your accents, but rather that you have been chosen for a specific task. You are chosen to live with the burden of having declared to the world that there is a standard above tribe, throne, party, and epoch. The burden is that you cannot retreat into the consolations of relativism without betraying your foundation. You cannot comfortably say, “Well, every culture has its own truths,” without also sawing off the branch on which you sit. If equality and liberty are not true by nature, then your founding is a magnificent illusion, and you are only one more tribe defending its prejudices. But if they are true by nature, then their reach is universal, their demand inescapable. You carry that demand. You carry it in your institutions, but more profoundly, you carry it in your self-understanding. You are condemned, by your own first principles, to care about the fate of liberty everywhere — out of philosophic consistency and not of imperial ambition. This is the burden of being New Zion. You cannot hide your light under a bushel without ceasing to be yourselves.
From my vantage point, in a nation that has grown accustomed to retreat — to the modest comfort of thinking we can live as if history has ended and geography will protect us — I see you for what you are: the keystone of Western civilization. Remove you, and the arch collapses. Your military power is the result of this reason. The real keystone is that in you, the philosophy of natural rights did not remain an abstraction in a book or a lecture, but took the frightening step into reality. You wagered that men, understood as by nature free and equal, must govern themselves. The West’s greatest achievement — the union of reason and liberty—has its most concrete home in you.
That is why your crises are never local matters. When you grow weary of yourself, when you tire of the old words and regard them as empty slogans, it is not only you who are endangered. A world already suspicious about reason looks on and concludes that even the noblest attempt to found politics on nature is a failure. Your decadence is offered as proof that the longing for liberty must submit at last to some new form of gentle despotism, administrative and “scientific,” tidy and soulless. The world is always looking for an excuse to give up on the demand that regimes justify themselves by appealing to something higher than power. Your failure would be that excuse.
This is why — on this 250th anniversary — I write to thank you, not simply to flatter. You are tempted today by two opposite forms of forgetfulness. One is the temptation of heritage idolatry: to imagine that what makes you is a mere continuity of blood and custom, an ethnic story dressed up as philosophy. The other is the temptation of pure proceduralism: to see yourself as nothing but an empty framework in which any “culture”, any “values,” any “identity” may be poured.
Both are evasions. The first reduces you to a tribe among tribes and abandons the universality at your essence. The second strips you of all substantive claims and abandons the truth by nature that gave you birth. Between these lies the hard road of self-knowledge: to remember that you are, in origin, argument and not blood — the argument that there are truths about man and justice that are true everywhere and always.
As a Canadian, I have been spared many of your struggles. But I have not been spared the consequences of your ideas. I live in a world fundamentally shaped by the fact that, in 1776, a group of men on the eastern edge of a vast continent dared to write that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed,” and that when any form of government becomes destructive of the ends of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it may be altered or abolished. Whether my own nation remembers it or not, I know, because you taught me, that any regime which denies the equal natural freedom of its citizens is illegitimate.
That knowledge is a liberation and a wound. It liberates because it tells me that I am not crazy when I feel outraged by injustice; I am simply judging by the nature of things. It wounds because it leaves me no refuge in the cozy lie that “this is just the way we do things here.” Your universalism leaves me cosmopolitan in the deepest sense, unable to be satisfied with local excuses.
So today, on your 250th birthday, I thank Providence that my quiet, conciliatory nation has been blessed to share a border with you and not with a despot. I thank Nature’s God that your existence keeps alive the possibility of politics grounded in nature and not will. I thank you that your flag, mocked and burned in some quarters, still stands as a symbol that there is such a thing as a rational standard by which the mighty may be called to account.
My love, the chosen people of natural right, you remain the one great nation that staked everything on the claim that man is by nature free and equal, and that government must humble itself before that fact. For that, a woman across your 49th parallel can know, without permission or apology, that she is free and equal by nature. That knowledge is your gift to me. Do not renounce it.
In awe and wonder,
An eternally grateful Canadian
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Dimpee Brar currently serves as the Director of Engagement for Allies for a Strong Canada. She is a writer whose work can be found in the Federalist, American Spectator, the Western Standard, and the Toronto Sun. She appears frequently on various podcasts and radio shows. You can follow her on X: @isthisdimpeeb

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A Grateful Canadian’s Love Letter To America

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The Editor Of The Most Popular Edition Of The Federalist Thinks It’s More Important Than Ever

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It has become an unfortunate habit of some on the Right to blame our failures on an overly idealistic youth. Our country’s history tells a different story.
Audacity and idealism in young people are features, not bugs. As a matter of fact, it’s baked into our national identity. The Founding Fathers were, for the most part, young men in their 20s and 30s.
In the year 1776, Alexander Hamilton was the age of a college junior. Instead of trigger warnings and safe spaces, he dedicated his energy to the nuances of nation-building. Not long after, he went on to craft the greatest financial system the world has ever known.
James Madison at 25 wasn’t focused on “work-life balance” or “finding himself” like much of today’s youth. He was framing the Virginia State Constitution and would soon author the Bill of Rights.
It was a young man’s world. A far cry from today’s Washington, D.C., which can at times be difficult to distinguish from a nursing home.
Even the oldest among them, Mr. Benjamin Franklin (age 70), would be a veritable spring chicken in today’s political landscape.
They weren’t waiting for permission from the grown-ups.
While the average life expectancy was only around 35-40, this figure is widely misunderstood. Extremely high infant mortality rates drove the average down vastly. The life expectancy for adults who survived youth was <a href="https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog/2024/08/15/three-score-and-ten/">closer to 70</a>. Today, a healthy 21-year-old can expect to live to about 78-82.
In other words, the change in life expectancy does not explain why our politicians have doubled in age.
The same youthful energy exists today. You can find it in college protests. You can find it in the endless online crusades and political activism. With some exceptions, I tend to believe that these rowdy youth are well-intentioned. The difference is that the Founders were driven by a deep understanding of history and the world around them. Today’s youth are predominantly driven by catchy slogans and bumper-sticker logic.
Robert A. Heinlein once said that “Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.”
Even in the days of the American Revolution, there were two versions of youthful idealism: one disciplined by history and the other intoxicated by utopian rage. Only a few short years after the American youth had crafted the republic, the French youth had brought chaos and mayhem into their society. In their case, the consequence of reckless idealism was the Reign of Terror.
While experience is the best teacher, there is also something to be said for action. The Founders chose not to wait for permission. They ferociously educated themselves in philosophy, history, and economics.
The Founding Fathers didn’t have access to Google. Their education paled in comparison to ours when you factor in the modern world&#8217;s vast resources and democratization of information.
True, there may be a wash of underqualified teachers and liberal orthodoxy in the public education system. But this problem has existed in one form or another for hundreds of years. The great minds in our history didn’t wait for world-class education to drop neatly into their laps. Thomas Jefferson was known to devote 15 hours a day to his personal studies.
What’s your excuse?
We cannot be so lazy as to blame partisanship for the prevalence of a destructive disposition. The disagreements between the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans were no less fierce than those today. Think Jefferson didn’t view Hamilton as a tyrannical threat to Democracy? Think Hamilton didn’t view Jefferson as a radical extremist with no grasp on reality? Think again.
They compromised with their enemies not because they wanted to, but because it was necessary. They rose to the occasion because young didn’t have to mean stupid, and idealistic didn’t have to mean immature.
Perhaps young people governed differently when they had to live in the world that they built. It is a lot less appealing to plug your ears and pretend that snappy rhetoric is a substitute for pragmatic action when you have to face the consequences.
Our debt crisis is indicative of politicians who are much more comfortable hitting the snooze button on today’s issues than facing them head-on. It’s a lot easier to kick the can down the road when you’ve got one foot out the door. Hamilton and Jefferson had to reap whatever they sowed. Bernie Sanders, not so much.
It is both futile and foolish to try to suppress the youthful spirit. It should be nurtured and directed towards positive ends.
It is time we teach our children to be a little more like the Founding Fathers and a little less like the French.

Thomas Jefferson

The Young Men of 1776: When Progressives Really Wanted Progress

Youth Vote

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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A 22-year-old colonel in the British Army made a crucial mistake in the 1750s. He messed up so badly that he may have been responsible for dragging North America into the brutal Seven Years&#8217; War. The colonel had built his stronghold, Fort Necessity, with a mind to strategy; he just picked the wrong one. Instead of providing a vantage point from which to see and fire upon enemies, the fort was easily surrounded by the French and hostile Indians, who forced a surrender on July 3, 1754.
With dozens of deaths on his hands, Colonel George Washington had failed. 
Among those who still care about the founders of our country, there is a tendency to focus only on their virtues, a temptation that began all the way back in the Revolutionary period. George Washington never felled a cherry tree, that we know of, though the myth tells us something about the way historians wanted him to be seen: honorable, responsible, and honest. The urge to deify our first president is so strong that there is a painting in the Capitol Rotunda titled “The Apotheosis of Washington.”
But the man who “could not tell a lie” had his faults like the rest of us. And in Angel Studios’ “Young Washington,” it’s these failures that turn him into the legendary general whom we know of today. 
Washington, played by 22-year-old William Franklyn-Miller, is nothing but potential and ambition. A colonist without a title, land, or his own fortune, he aspires to much greater things than anyone expects of him. His mother discourages him from joining the British forces, and he is initially rejected as an officer because of his lack of formal education. 
When he offers to be a land surveyor for the wealthy Thomas Fairfax, played by “Frasier” star Kelsey Grammer, he becomes wrapped up in the bloody French and British land disputes in a way he could never have imagined. Like Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Alexander Hamilton, Washington is “young, scrappy, and hungry,” but he’s also trusting and naive.
Washington is unexpectedly undercut by a group of American Indians who use his exploratory expedition for their own purposes against the French, and, due to a translation failure, he accidentally takes credit for the assassination of a French ensign. When he tries to explain away his missteps, he gets a lesson in leadership. 
“To lead is to forfeit the right to make excuses,” Virginia’s lieutenant governor, played by Ben Kingsley, tells him. 
The film takes us through the pivotal time in Washington&#8217;s life before he grew into a great leader. He is rejected and dismissed at seemingly every turn, including by a young Sally Fairfax, whose presence adds a bit of romantic tension to the plot while underscoring that Washington didn’t, in fact, achieve everything he wanted as a young man. 
Yet George refuses to give up, even after his failure at Fort Necessity. “July 3rd will be etched in my memory forever,” he says. When he returns to the British forces as an aide-de-camp, swiftly returning to leadership after the death of Major General Edward Braddock (Andy Serkis), he willingly puts himself in harm’s way for the sake of his men, the Virginians. 
This is the kind of patriotism we lack on the big screen. This year’s semiquincentennial celebration has been largely <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/america-turns-250-so-where-are-the-patriotic-movies?">ignored by Hollywood</a>. Over the past few years, Americans who are ashamed of our history have scrambled to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-rioters-burn-american-flag-on-fire-on-top-of-george-washington-statue-tear-it-down">topple statues</a>, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/san-fran-paint-over-historic-george-washington-james-barrett">paint over murals</a>, and otherwise erase <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-critics-cant-stand-the-idea-of-george-washington-praying">or belittle</a> monuments not just to George Washington, but to other heroes of our shared past. 
As families gather to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, what they need is a film to remind them of the courage and sacrifices of the men who made our country what it is today. They’re looking for films with real heroes who can inspire them to be better. (They’re certainly not going to get that from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hollywood-made-another-modern-woman-hero-heres-how-it-went">“Supergirl.”</a>) “Young Washington,” in theaters tomorrow, is such a film. 
Bring the older kids: Angel Studios <a href="https://www.angel.com/tickets/young-washington">recommends</a> the PG-13 film for ages 12 and up for violence and light cursing, though I’d say some older elementary school students may enjoy it as well. And all ages can benefit from the example of its young hero.
The same age as the young Washington he portrays, Franklyn-Miller plays the founding father with conviction. Washington concludes that “failure is a great teacher,” and he refuses to allow even his catastrophic failures to keep him from fighting for his country. There’s a modern lesson there for anyone wise enough to heed it.

YW 2

‘Young Washington’ Shows How Failure Made America’s Greatest Leader

Angel Studios

Upstream

On this day, 250 years ago, Thomas <a href="https://x.com/OldeWorldOrder/status/2071021131373429235">Paine</a> publicly argued for adopting &#8220;United States of America&#8221; as the formal name of the new nation, just days before the Declaration of Independence was adopted. The name stuck because it described exactly what we were building: a nation of united, sovereign states, not a collection of squabbling colonies.
And on this day, June 29, 2026, Democrats are flipping their flags upside down, banning the Bible from schools, and refusing to celebrate our 250th anniversary. They&#8217;re not just apathetic about this country; they&#8217;re actively allergic to it.
Gosh, they ruin everything good.
Though Republican pride in the country remains strong — 70% of Republican voters say they&#8217;re &#8220;extremely proud&#8221; to be an American — Democrats are at an embarrassing 14%. If you&#8217;re not proud of the nation that invented modern liberty, defeated fascism and communism, put a man on the moon, and gave the world the technologies that define the 21st century, then what exactly are you proud of?
I, for one, identify as an American thoroughbred. I bleed red, white, and blue. I think Uncle Sam is my actual uncle. I get giddy reading about the Founding Fathers and the impossible odds they overcame to secure the freedoms we now treat like background noise. Sure, I&#8217;m proud of my Italian heritage and my olive skin, and Sicily is a fantastic vacation spot, but all of that will always come second to my Americanism. 
 
And for those of you who don&#8217;t feel this way and have allegiances to other countries, may I ask why the hell you&#8217;re still here?
We have a mountain with four presidents&#8217; faces carved into it — Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt — because they&#8217;re the men who brought us independence, individual liberty, global strength, and the abolition of slavery. We sent reusable rockets into space while other nations were still figuring out how to keep the lights on. We put a man on the moon before most people had calculators. We invented the airplane, the internet, and the smartphone, and turned the very landscape of every Taylor Sheridan series into the most powerful, prosperous, and free society in human history. Also, we have lots of air conditioning.
This is not a normal country. It&#8217;s an extraordinary one. Where people don’t just “make it,” they change the world.
And despite this, despite ubiquitous Ozempic, despite Amazon Prime and ranch dressing, the Left still isn’t having fun. But they aren’t just unhappy. They&#8217;ve built an entire identity out of grievance, and a country worth celebrating is a direct threat to that identity. If America is good, their whole worldview collapses. So it can&#8217;t be good. It has to be irredeemably racist, colonialist, and oppressive. Because the alternative is admitting they&#8217;ve spent decades being wrong about everything.
That&#8217;s why they ban the Bible from schools, sneer at the flag, and sit out the 250th anniversary of the greatest political experiment in human history. It&#8217;s not intellectual. It&#8217;s a mental illness. Misery needs company, and America&#8217;s success is the loneliest thing in the world for someone who needs it to fail.
Take the Bible. Liberals are furious that the Texas State Board of Education voted to make Bible passages required in public schools. I’m furious that it wasn’t already.
The Bible is in our national DNA. It helped write the code. George Washington prayed that citizens would imitate &#8220;the Divine Author of our blessed Religion.&#8221; John Adams said plainly that the Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people, and called the Bible the best book in the world. Thomas Jefferson created his own edited version of the Gospels. And our first Chief Justice, John Jay, said it was the duty of a Christian nation to prefer Christian leaders. These views weren’t fringe; they were the whole operation. Attacking the Bible isn’t brave countercultural resistance; it’s sawing off the branch you’re sitting on.
But here&#8217;s the thing about 250 years: we&#8217;ve survived worse than these woke woeful warriors. We&#8217;ve survived actual existential threats, and we came out stronger every time. The question is whether this generation will do its part.
It&#8217;s not too late for normal Democrats and independents who still love this country. Stop following activists who treat America like an original sin. Ask yourself what kind of nation you want your children to inherit. Be proud of the past, protective of the present, and hopeful for the future. Fly the flag right-side up. Teach your kids and your friends the real story of this country. Fire up the grill this Fourth and celebrate the 250th anniversary like it means something — because it means everything.
This nation is worth defending. It&#8217;s worth keeping alive for another 250 years. And it&#8217;s worth being proud of.

Patriot’s Day Parade

I Bleed Red, White, And Blue – The Left Can’t Stand It

Leftists

Patriotism

As America prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, former President Barack Obama has once again invited Americans to dwell on the shortcomings of their inheritance rather than its greatness.
Speaking at the gala opening of his presidential center in Chicago last week, Obama <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2026/06/18/read-barack-obamas-speech-at-the-obama-presidential-center">declared</a> that the Founders “fell terribly short” of the lofty principles they proclaimed our great nation should embody. The former president went on to say that he was referring primarily to the persistence of slavery in the early republic. That’s fair, at least to some extent. No honest reading of American history can deny that slavery was a profound moral evil, nor that the Founders left significant unfinished business to later generations. Yet as Americans prepare to commemorate the most successful experiment in self-government in human history, it is striking that the Left is constitutionally incapable of discussing the achievements of the founding without immediately turning to its failures.
This has been Barack Obama’s consistent reflex since he first stepped onto the national scene more than two decades ago. Rather than treating the remarkable American story as a cause for gratitude, he persistently returns to it as a source of national (and ceaseless) self-reproach.
To the self-consciously Woke, the story of the American founding is not one of heroism, perseverance, constitutional self-government, and expanding liberty. It is almost entirely an account of injustice and oppression, punctuated by all-too-infrequent moments of improvement. For the Left, America’s shortcomings are its defining feature. To focus too enthusiastically on the nation’s accomplishments is to turn a blind eye to the suffering of anyone who wasn’t a white heterosexual male. To recite a catalog of grievances (most of which have, in the eyes of the Left, been only partially addressed) is a more truthful reading of history.
For progressives afflicted with various stages of Trump Derangement Syndrome, nostalgia for the Obama era runs high. The dedication of this new presidential center was a welcome opportunity to indulge in the pleasure of remembering not only Obama&#8217;s eight years in office, but also the themes to which he returned so regularly. Last week, the former president did not disappoint his listeners. When he moved from saying that the Founders &#8220;fell terribly short&#8221; to conceding that &#8220;they did have the foresight, the genius to provide us with a framework that allows each generation to make our union more perfect,&#8221; the unmistakable implication was that the story of America is one of gradual moral enlightenment, with each generation correcting the failures of those who came before it. It is a vision of history that invariably casts the present as wiser than the past and political progressives as the heroic agents of that progress. It also conveniently places Barack Obama at the zenith of that narrative, anointing him the living symbol of a nation finally becoming what it was always meant to be.
There is a far better — and far truer — way to understand the American founding.
The Founders never claimed perfection for themselves, nor do contemporary conservatives assign perfection to them. The men who gathered in Philadelphia nearly 250 years ago knew they were ordinary human beings, as much in need of grace as anyone. Nonetheless, they humbly attempted something utterly unprecedented: the creation of a constitutional republic grounded in the conviction that rights come not from government but from God, and that a legitimate government exists not to dispense those rights but to secure them.
The Left is all too fond of pointing out that the Founders failed to live fully by the principles they proclaimed. Fair, perhaps. It is then worth asking why the greatest reformers in American history chose — every time! — to appeal to those very principles rather than reject them. The abolitionists, the champions of civil rights, and generations of ordinary Americans seeking a more just society all found in the Declaration a standard against which the nation could be judged and, when necessary, corrected.
The Founders did not just leave unfinished business. They also left an inheritance.
As Americans prepare to commemorate 250 years of independence, that inheritance (and not the inevitable shortcomings found in any human story) is what must command our attention and our reverence. We are the beneficiaries of constitutional self-government, religious liberty, federalism, free enterprise, and a conception of natural rights that transformed not merely a single nation but the world. This sacred inheritance is the product of statesmanship, sacrifice, and above all, a profound understanding of human nature.
Barack Obama is right about one thing. Every generation inherits the responsibility to preserve and strengthen the American experiment. Two and a half centuries after the founding, the great question is not whether our forebears were imperfect, but whether we will prove worthy of all that they have entrusted to us.
***
Greg Sindelar is interim president and CEO at the America First Policy Institute.

US-MUSEUM-POLITICS-OBAMA

Obama’s Legacy: Feuding With The Founding Fathers

Barack Obama

Obama Presidential Library

Former President Barack Obama said Thursday that America’s Founding Fathers “fell terribly short” when they adopted the Declaration of Independence in 1776 because they did not immediately abolish slavery. 
Obama made the remarks ahead of the official opening of his sprawling presidential library in Chicago, flanked by other former presidents, including Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Joe Biden. The library, which kicked off its opening day with a land acknowledgment, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/obama-museum-sets-records-including-how-much-itll-cost-you-to-get-in">cost</a> $850 million to construct and opened 3,437 days after Obama left office. 
&#8220;In forming our union, the founders fell terribly short of the Declaration&#8217;s promise, leaving slavery intact, allowing states to restrict the franchise to white men who owned property,” Obama said of the document&#8217;s proclamation that &#8220;all men are created equal&#8221; and are &#8220;endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.&#8221;
“But in drafting a Constitution and a Bill of rights, they did have the foresight, the genius, to provide us with a framework that allows each generation to make our union more perfect,” Obama added. 
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“Over more than two centuries, through petitions and protests, marches and strikes, moral appeals from the pulpit and conversations at the family dinner table, men and women from all walks of life, of every color, every faith, every region took up the cause of democracy and made it their own. Until we the People came to include not just some of us, but all of us,” Obama added later.
The Obama family has been infamously critical of America’s past, with former first lady Michelle Obama once claiming that the first time she was ever proud of the United States as an adult was during her husband’s first presidential campaign. 
&#8220;For the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback,” she said on the campaign trail in 2008. 
Obama’s comments come as the nation prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration.
In recognition of that milestone, President Donald Trump has promised to have the “largest fireworks show in history” to celebrate Independence Day. 
Trump said that the festivities will kick off on June 24 with music performed by the Army and Marine Corps military bands and Lee Greenwood. He said that Air Force fighter jets and stealth bombers would fly over for the ceremony taking place on the National Mall.

Obama Presidential Library Dedication Ceremony

Obama Knocks Founders Before America’s 250th

Chicago

Illinois

As America approaches its 250th birthday on July 4, a debate is growing about what it means to be an American.
Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch waded into the conversation last month by asserting in an interview that America is <a href="https://x.com/NRO/status/2052080018449137691">“a creedal nation.”</a> According to Gorsuch, “what unites us is not a religion, it’s not a race, it’s a belief” in the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.
For some, those remarks were fighting words.
On social media, Gorsuch was quickly denounced as “<a href="https://x.com/StevenDeLay4/status/2052157802806657254">a traitor</a>” who was spouting <a href="https://x.com/realJeremyCarl/status/2052129536528331115">“nonsense” and “claptrap.”</a>
Critics of America as a creedal nation like to think of themselves as the vanguard of a popular new movement, especially among conservative Christians. But <a href="https://www.discovery.org/a/new-survey-americans-defined-by-belief-in-americas-founding-ideals-not-by-ancestry-or-religion/">a newly released survey</a> of 2,500 Americans conducted by Discovery Institute undercuts that claim.
Respondents were asked, “in your view, for someone to truly be an American, which attributes should they have?”
Six in 10 said that to truly be an American, someone should embrace “the ideas expressed by the Declaration of Independence” and “the form of government created by the Constitution.” Seven in 10 said that to be a true American, one “should agree with the freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights.”
By contrast, only 3.2% of respondents said people “should be descended from an ancestor from Britain or Europe” to truly be an American, and only 16.8% thought that true Americans needed to “agree with Christianity.”
With minor variations, these overall results hold across all major demographics, including political ideology.
For example, 97% of self-identified Christian conservatives reject British/European ancestry as a requirement to be a true American, and 69% of Christian conservatives reject the idea that someone needs to agree with Christianity in order to be a true American.
These results reflect how deeply ingrained the creedal nation idea remains in the American psyche.
Some claim the idea of America as a creedal nation was invented by post-World War II liberals. But America’s Founders proclaimed limited government, unalienable rights, equality under God, and the consent of the governed because they believed these were universal truths. Accordingly, from the early years of the republic, they held up those principles as applicable to all people everywhere.
Catholic Charles Carroll was the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. Reflecting on the Declaration’s 50th anniversary in 1826, he recommended: “to the present and future generations the principles of that important document, as the best earthly inheritance their ancestors could bequeath to them; and pray[ed] that the civil and religious liberties they have secured to my country may be perpetuated to remotest posterity, and extended to the whole family of man.”
By 1921, the uniqueness of America as a creedal nation was so apparent to others around the world that Englishman G.K. Chesterton declared, “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence.”
Contrary to some critics, being a creedal nation does not require America to allow unlimited immigration. In fact, America’s founding principles provide a principled reason for keeping out all those who do not support its creed — and for making sure native-born Americans are taught America’s creed as well.
That said, the more thoughtful critics of the “creedal nation” idea are correct to insist that culture matters as well as creed. Here, they have a legitimate gripe with Justice Gorsuch, who seemed overly dismissive of culture, remarking, “Our nation is not founded on a religion. It’s not based on a common culture even, or heritage.”
In truth, creeds develop from — and are sustained by — culture. That includes religion.
The idea that all humans are created equal, for example, grew out of the Bible. This fact was widely recognized by America’s founders, regardless of their own faith convictions.
Physician Benjamin Rush was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a devout Christian. He argued that the Bible was the book “above all others” that “favors … equality among mankind.” Pamphleteer Thomas Paine was a deist who rejected the Bible as supernatural revelation, but on this point he agreed with Rush. Paine traced the idea of human equality back to “the Mosaic account of the creation.”
Americans are right to be concerned about culture. But instead of repudiating our founding creed or suggesting its truths are limited to people of a certain race or religion, we should be working to rebuild the institutions needed to support that creed.
***
John G. West is the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Endowed-Our-Creator-Science-Americas/dp/1637120877/">Endowed by Our Creator</a> (DI Press, 2026) and vice president of the Discovery Institute. He is also the Distinguished Scholar of American Government and Christian Civic Engagement at Cornerstone University.

Stars and Stripes flag of the United States

The Makings Of Americans

American culture

In just a few weeks, America turns 250 years old.
That’s honestly staggering when you stop and think about it. History is filled with kingdoms, empires, and nations that rose fast, burned bright, and disappeared just as quickly. Freedom, self-government, and individual liberty are not the historical norm. They’re rare. Fragile. Hard-earned things.
And yet here we are.
A little over a year ago, I found myself wrestling with a question I couldn’t quite shake: What could I possibly contribute to a moment this significant in our nation’s story?
The answer surprised me.
Write a novel.
Not because the world desperately needed another book, but because I kept hearing people — adults and kids alike — talk about history as if it were lifeless, dry, boring, and disconnected from real human emotion. Meanwhile, I looked around at our culture and saw something else happening: a country increasingly disconnected from sacrifice, gratitude, shared identity, and the understanding of what it actually costs to build and preserve this experiment called America.
And I think people are starving for stories that reconnect them to those things.
That’s where The Unlikely Life of Oliver Atkinson came from.
I want readers to feel the founding of this nation again — not as a chapter in a textbook, but as something dangerous, uncertain, human, and alive. I want them to step into the fear, courage, faith, loss, and hope of ordinary people caught inside extraordinary times.
So I imagined America’s founding through the eyes of a young orphan and indentured servant who suddenly finds himself swept into the chaos of the Boston Tea Party aboard one of the very ships that were raided that night. Eventually, he’s taken in by Paul Revere and introduced to the world of the Sons of Liberty, where he comes of age as the nation itself is born.
But the deeper truth is this: Oliver’s story really isn’t about Oliver alone.
It’s about us.
Because America itself was young then. Vulnerable. Divided. Uncertain of whether it would survive. The Founders weren’t marble statues standing frozen in perfection. They were flesh-and-blood human beings trying to hold together an impossible dream under enormous pressure. Farmers. Printers. Merchants. Mothers. Soldiers. Clergymen. Imperfect people carrying unimaginable weight.
And the more I researched, the more I realized how much they risked.
When the signers pledged “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor,” those weren’t poetic words for a history classroom wall. If they lost, many of them would have been executed as traitors.
My own ancestor, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, signed his name boldly enough that the British would know exactly who he was. He had wealth, status, comfort — everything to lose. Yet he signed anyway.
Why?
Because some things are bigger than comfort.
Some things are worth sacrifice.
And I think deep down, Americans still know that.
That’s part of why stories like this matter right now. We live in a time where cynicism is easy, division is constant, institutions are mistrusted, and national identity itself is often treated as something embarrassing or dangerous rather than something worth understanding, protecting, and improving.
But people still hunger for meaning. They still long for courage. They still respond to stories of sacrifice, conviction, faith, redemption, and purpose. They want to believe there are still things bigger than self-interest.
That hunger is everywhere right now.
And maybe that’s because beneath all the noise, Americans still want to reconnect with who we are, not in some simplistic or sanitized way, but honestly. With humility. With gratitude. With perspective.
America has never been perfect. The Founders knew that. But they also understood something modern people sometimes forget: freedom requires virtue, sacrifice, responsibility, courage, and citizens willing to preserve it.
Benjamin Franklin famously said we had been given “a republic, if you can keep it.”
Two hundred and fifty years later, that question still hangs in the air.
As we approach this remarkable milestone in our history, maybe the best thing we can do is remember. Remember what was risked. Remember what was built. Remember the people who gave everything so future generations might have the chance to live freely.
That’s ultimately why I wrote The Unlikely Life of Oliver Atkinson.
Not simply to entertain people — though I hope it does that too — but to help readers feel connected to the courage, sacrifice, faith, and fragile hope that helped give birth to this nation in the first place.
***
David Jones III is a historical fiction writer living in Myrtle Beach. His book, The Unlikely Life of Oliver Atkinson, is available on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Unlikely-Life-Oliver-Atkinson/dp/1630620912">Amazon</a>. More: <a href="http://davidjones3.com/">davidjones3.com</a>

Battle of Bennington flag

America 250 Comes To Life Through The Power Of Story

Untitled design – 2026-06-09T122313.811

America Just Lost One Of Its Greatest Defenders

American Revolution

History

Obituaries

It’s been 48 hours since organizers unveiled the lineup for the “Freedom 250” concert on the National Mall, and nearly every featured musical act has dropped out.
Morris Day &amp; The Time say they were never confirmed for the kickoff to The Great American State Fair, while the other acts all posted some version of the same statement.
Martina McBride said she “was assured this was a nonpartisan event,” while Bret Michaels said the event was described to him “as a celebration of our country through music and a chance to honor … hardworking Americans from all walks of life.”
“Unfortunately, what was presented to us as a celebration of our country has evolved into something much more divisive,” Michaels added. Rapper Young MC offered a similar excuse, saying he was “never told about any political involvement with the event” and expressed his desire to “perform in D.C. in the near future at an event that is not so politically charged.”
What a load of bullshit.
I don’t expect famous musicians to embody courage and patriotism, but even by celebrity standards, this is an egregious display of both ignorance and cowardice. These artists didn’t pull out because the concert was politicized — they politicized it by pulling out.
The bigger issue is that the event would have been politicized no matter what the artists did. Had McBride and Michaels and the lot stayed on the bill, it would have sent a message to Americans about the importance of separating patriotism from politics. Instead, their actions worsened the problem they pretended to lament. It’s unfortunate, and it’s embarrassing.
Let’s break it down.
<h3>Partisanship Is Neither Bad Nor Un-American</h3>
I want to start here, because this is the subtext of the entire debacle. The artists were happy to sing on the Mall until the media and Democrats started deeming it “Trump’s concert,” at which point they promptly ran for the hills. The real issue, of course, is that they don’t want to be associated with Trump (more on that later). But because they want to seem like they’re above the political fray, they simply say that they want to remain “nonpartisan.”
People love to say this, and it always makes them sound stupid. You can’t touch politics and remain nonpartisan. Bipartisan, sure — it’s possible for people with different party affiliations and ideologies to work together, and good when they do. But nonpartisan? To quote the 21st century’s sleepiest president: Come on, man.
This isn’t even a commentary on our divisive political age, though it’s certainly gotten harder to play at nonpartisanship over the past decade. Partisanship is literally built into the foundation of this country. The Constitution? A document born out of a brutal political struggle. Washington, D.C.? Declared our nation’s capital after a backroom trade between warring factions. Even George Washington’s <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/george-washington-farewell-address-1796" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Farewell Address</a> — where Washington famously cautioned Americans to avoid “the enterprises of faction” — is a partisan document. Alexander Hamilton wrote the speech with an eye towards Thomas Jefferson and James Madison’s nascent Republican Party. Washington wasn’t warning Americans to avoid political parties as a rule; he was telling them they should <a href="https://dn720706.ca.archive.org/0/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.148237/2015.148237.The-Idea-Of-A-Party-System.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">all be Federalists</a>.
So, even if a celebration is associated with a particular party or politician, that doesn’t make it bad. But as luck would have it for our roster of stars, that’s not even a thing they needed to worry about.
<h3>There’s Nothing “Partisan” About The National Mall Concert</h3>
Donald Trump is a divisive and partisan figure. The former is a matter of perception: if Democrats could get over themselves, he would be seen as the opposition rather than the enemy. But the latter is an indisputable fact: Trump is an elected official and the head of the Republican Party. In that role, he is inherently partisan, no two ways about it.
But Trump isn’t just the leader of the Republican Party. He’s the President of the United States. As ultraliberal President Jed Bartlet says in “The West Wing,” “I&#8217;m the President of the United States, not the president of the people who agree with me.”
So it is with Trump. Partisanship is just one part of a presidency. The other, more important part — leading the nation and all that — was perfectly reflected in this concert. Trump is right to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence with, as John Adams <a href="https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17760703jasecond" target="_blank" rel="noopener">once wrote</a>, “pomp and parade, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations.”
Now, Trump will almost certainly make some kind of political speech at the concert. Of course he will. Would it be better if he stuck to patriotic platitudes and avoided potshots at political foes? Of course. But that’s not who he is, and that&#8217;s not what our politics is like these days. But even a presidential display of partisanship is not enough to drown out the broader message of the concert. That’s the entire point of this country – the republic looms larger than, and outlasts, our petty squabbling.
It’s also, to a certain extent, the point of live music. Conservatives take it for granted that their favorite artists hate them, and they go to their concerts anyway. You can sit through a rambling Springsteen monologue about tyranny if it means getting a roaring “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out.” Liberals, having enjoyed cultural hegemony for so long, can’t conceive of this. And so these artists — none of whom are really famous enough to pass up a national stage — chose to stay home rather than play nice with the president for an afternoon. That’s unpatriotic and stupid, but it’s also just really, really lame.
<h3>Everyone Needs To Be Cool About Cool Stuff</h3>
Just because partisanship isn’t inherently bad doesn’t mean it’s all inherently good. And one of the worst expressions of partisanship is when people let their political priors blind them to objectively good things. We see this all the time when politics and entertainment intersect.
Before acts started pulling out of the concert, people were talking about the upcoming UFC fight on the White House lawn. Construction began on the Octagon this week, and liberals naturally took to social media to say that this was an affront to democracy.
If I thought that these critics were arguing in good faith, I would say that a bare-knuckle brawl on the White House lawn is the perfect distillation of American democracy. But of course, these critics aren’t arguing in good faith. It’s not about keeping the White House free of spectacle, or else they would have been furious when Joe Biden turned the lawn over to a bunch of half-naked transvestites. It’s about opposing anything that’s even a little bit affiliated with Trump.
Republicans have this problem, too. It was dumb to pretend it wasn’t awesome when Obama played basketball with <a href="https://www.si.com/nba/2020/04/04/barack-obama-basketball-white-house-kobe-bryant" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kevin Durant</a>. That was awesome! It was an incredible American moment, just like Dubya telling the White House press corps to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HZ3Tjohwqo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“watch this drive</a>.” A UFC fight on the South Lawn, a concert on the National Mall: these are incredible spectacles, and it’s objectively cool that the president is involved. It would be cool if the president was a Democrat; it would be cool if the president was a different Republican.
Some things are too enjoyable to let politics get in the way. It’s why there are conservative Grateful Dead fans and liberals who love “Yellowstone.” It’s why Martina McBride didn’t object when Americans turned her song “Independence Day” — written from the perspective of a woman fleeing domestic violence — into a patriotic anthem in the wake of September 11.
The song’s writer, Gretchen Peters, has complained about the song’s new life, making it known that she donated her royalties from Sean Hannity’s show (which famously used “Independence Day” as its theme song) to <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/independence-day-martina-mcbride-real-meaning-855248/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Planned Parenthood.</a>
Not so McBride, who famously performed the song while flanked by two giant American flags at Farm Aid in 2001, shortly after attacks on the World Trade Center.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5Q3LyECse3g?si=jySv9mDwogmdTuh4" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
The singer would subsequently say that she had “mixed feelings about” that performance, because she doesn’t “want to take away from what the song is really about.” But she was very clear about the reason she leaned into a patriotic interpretation of the song when she did.
“We were all so raw … and trying to have solidarity and pulling together as a country,” she said. “When I realized that the words to that chorus, ‘let freedom ring,’ kind of mirror what we were all feeling at the time, I made that decision to do that.”
Some things are bigger than politics. Americans understand this. The president understands this. There was even a time when Martina McBride understood this. It’s a shame that she and her fellow performers lost sight of this truth.  But hey, there’s still time: maybe Trump can get <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hey-country-stars-do-the-right-thing-perform-on-the-national-mall">Morgan Wallen</a> or <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/country-musics-hottest-star-keeps-pointing-back-to-god" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ella Langley.</a>

HBO, Starbucks and Chase hosted the first free and open to the public Veterans Day Concert for Valor Tuesday, November 11, 2014 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to honor Americas veterans.

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