Even on a day where #AmericaWasNeverGreat becomes a trending topic, and even in a decade in which so many seem to have lost the plot, I can’t help but think that America is poised for a renaissance. The Twitterverse is intent to have you believe that the United States is solely responsible for all of Earth’s negative outcomes since 1776, and none of the positive outcomes.

Certainly there have been colossal missteps along the way, as humans are fallible, particularly in the exercise of state power. American foreign policy has long been disastrous. The CIA-led coup to overthrow Mossadeq in Iran was a key event in a chain reaction that has brought lasting conflict and instability to the Middle East.

But it was not the United States that redrew the maps of Africa and the Levant for reasons of geopolitical strategy. It was not the United States that created Israel in the middle of Palestine. Regardless of whether you agree with that decision, its effects are clear: enduring resentment and mutual hostility. The United States did drop two atomic bombs on Japan in World War II, but it also funded the post-war reconstruction of Europe and Japan to prevent the spread of Soviet Communism.

The United States may have participated in the global slave economy, but it was the first country to withdraw from it. Some 360,000 Americans died fighting for the abolitionist cause. America’s experiment with slavery lasted 89 years. The antebellum period was equally hellacious, and for that there is no excuse. It is worth noting, however, that the transition from slavery to liberty in an otherwise free and open society had no precedent on Earth at that scale. First endeavors often fail. Mistakes are made and not repeated for sake of lessons learned.

But all of that is a digression, because the United States is a set of principles, peoples and territories, not the totality of decisions made by its fallible ‘leadership’. Richard Nixon is not the United States. Richard Cheney is not the United States. Zbigniew Brzezinski is not the United States. These are devious men that have succeeded in pimping our brains en masse, so much that we conflated ourselves with them.

But they are not us, and we know this now.

#RichardNixonWasNeverGreat

#RichardCheneyWasNeverEvenHuman

The United States began as a unique commitment to limited secular government, to personal liberty, to national sovereignty and the individual right of self-determination. Over time, the government became the religion. Personal liberty gave way to authoritarian cravings for an abstract sense of security. National sovereignty yielded to globalist doctrine. The needs of the individual became secondary to the wants of the collective. And as all of this happened, America stopped believing in itself. It became something it could no longer recognize: a sycophantic supplicant. It had given up its hard-won conscious principles to give in to its collective unconsciousness, its shadow psychology.

It began to dread its uniqueness, so it labored to conform. To conform to lesser values, self-negation and comfortable mediocrity. To do this, it would have to apologize for its successes, to accept all of the blame and none of the credit. To become humorless and neurotic. Do you know anybody like this? Are they happy? Do they prosper? Or do they collectively comprise the most heavily medicated nation on this planet?

This has been a dark night for the nation-soul. And the Twitterverse is upset that dawn is breaking. A course-correction is underway. All things wax and wane.

The religious belief in government has been ruptured by decades of failed policies and social projects. Globalist doctrine has suffered massive defeat worldwide. The urges of collectivism have been exposed as toxic to the individual, and individuals are summarily thumping them in the marketplace of ideas. And the individual is bringing humor back, besting foes with an endless supply of dank memes.

This American renaissance is gaining momentum. Enjoy the ride, weather the growing pains and make jokes with Uncle Sam. Enact your new independence. Be radical by being yourself.

Or fuck off.