What has gone wrong for Americans? To listen to an increasing number of politicians and pundits on both sides, from Tucker Carlson to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, from Nick Fuentes to Zohran Mamdani, the answer seems to be: everything.

Americans are unable to get a job; to afford the necessities of life; to get married or have children; to find religious meaning or form friendships. And all of this can be laid at the feet of corrupt institutions and a corrupt system.

This conspiracy-tinged vitriolic take on the American system is a lie. Yet it contains a grain of truth. Our institutions have been led self-servingly by a coterie who disdain American values. Our colleges and universities have been turned from centres of education and enlightenment into indoctrination centres for left-wing politics and meaningless degrees, sinking tens of millions into debt in the process.

Our legacy media has betrayed the trust of the American people, spreading false narratives predicated on loyalty to the Democratic party and hatred of conservatives, particularly Donald Trump. Our religious institutions have been hollowed out by leaders unwilling to challenge the prevailing secular orthodoxies. Governments around the country – local, state and federal – have substituted regulations and subsidies for the protection of our rights, radically escalating costs while simultaneously scaling back opportunity; they have granted preferences to some groups at the expense of others.

That much is true. But then comes the Great Lie: that the basic principles upon which America stands are fatally flawed, and must be torn to the ground. The Great Lie states that institutional correction or replacement is insufficient: it is the very definition of America that requires replacement.

This is false. And what’s worse, it’s self-destructive. America was built on certain values. Adherence to those values, love of those values, embodiment of those values makes someone truly American.

What are those values? Free minds. America is rooted in the belief in the innate value of every human being. And human beings, created as we are in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), have the capacity to choose. Free minds allow for innovation. They allow for adaptation. They allow for true virtue: the choice to perform moral duty.

Our institutions have been led self-servingly by a coterie who disdain American values

Free markets. America is founded on the right to explore, to try, to fail and to succeed. America is uniquely dynamic precisely because of that right. America has, more than any other country in world history,........

© The Spectator