Compared to my peers, I’m usually more hopeful for our republic. As someone studying political science, it’s impossible to say that our country has been perfect, or even good. We have enacted genocides, slavery, Jim Crow and segregation. We have fought wars that are disguised as heroic ventures for profit, and we’ve forcibly relocated and imprisoned hundreds of thousands of people for “national security.” However, I still genuinely feel that the U.S. could one day be the greatest country in the world, and that one day the American Dream could be true for everyone, not just a select few. Maybe it’s ignorance, maybe it’s stubbornness or maybe it’s hope.
Over the past week, I’ve become really intrigued by Sen. Cory Booker and his recent 25-hour speech in defense of good trouble. During the speech, Booker mentioned the quote “If it is to be, it is up to me” by American painter William H. Johnson. For some reason, this quote resonated with me more than anything had in a while. In fact, it inspired me to write this piece. We are entering one of the most dangerous modern-day presidencies; since day one, it’s been headline after headline, constitutional crisis after constitutional crisis. The words “If it is to be, it is up to me” are now more important than ever.
Growing up with two immigrant parents who gave up practically all they had to come to this country meant I was told from a young age that this was the greatest country on Earth. It wasn’t until high school that I thought that it might not be true. I remember sitting in my American history class and learning about all the truly evil things this country had done throughout the years, and suddenly, it felt like what my parents had constantly told me was a lie.
In my junior and senior year of high school, I realized I never actually knew what it meant to be a “great country.” Sure, we are the richest nation in the world by net worth and we also have the strongest military in the world, but is that really what it means to be great?
While I’m unsure of what it means to be the greatest, I can tell that today we’re far from it. Despite being the richest nation in the world by net worth, we have a total homelessness population of around 771,000, and more than half of our country live paycheck-to-paycheck. Rather than address these issues, our government is focused on sending billions of dollars to a genocidal state that is currently engaging in an ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Our government is also deporting any person brave enough to speak out against our country’s financial ties to the genocidal state.
Clearly we don’t live in utopia. But the one factor that I believe gives us potential to be the greatest is our ability to change. While not entirely unique to us, our democracy provides us with an opportunity to organize and create real, substantive change. Throughout our nearly 250 years, we have made tremendous progress; from the enslavement of Black people to electing a Black president, we have proven time and time again that there is no hurdle too tall. While progress has not always been linear, and the current administration is proof enough of that, it doesn’t mean progress will ever stop.
I find that time and time again the most patriotic thing one can do for their country is fight for it. If one truly loves their country, they will forever fight for its progress instead of pretending that everything is okay, especially when we consistently commit monumental wrongs. The late writer and civil activist James Baldwin put it best: “I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
Felipe Sathler can be reached at [email protected].
