The audacity to believe: American exceptionalism is alive and well
On the Fourth of July, we don’t just celebrate fireworks and hot dogs. We celebrate audacity. The sheer, flag-waving, drum-beating, unapologetic belief that this wild American experiment is still something worth believing in.
It’s become fashionable to scoff at patriotism. Somewhere along the way, American pride got lumped in with arrogance, ignorance … or worse. As my fellow Scott Countian Chris Shelton aptly said this morning, what we used to call patriotism they now call xenophobia. Now we’re told that the idea of American exceptionalism is outdated. That thinking we’re the best is at best naive and at worst dangerous.
But maybe it’s exactly that audacity — to believe we are the best, or at least capable of becoming it — that has always been America’s secret sauce.
There’s something different about Americans. Always has been.
It’s not that we’re always right. It’s not that we’re the smartest, or the oldest, or the most refined. We’ve got our fair share of baggage. Lord, do we ever. But for 249 years, we’ve clung to the wild idea that people, from all walks of life, can come together and shape their own future. We believe in second chances. We believe in comebacks. We believe in hard work, big dreams, and bigger risks.
That’s not arrogance. That’s audacity.
That’s not xenophobia. That’s patriotism.
We’re the kind of people who looked at a vast, unsettled frontier and said, “We’ll build a country here.” The kind who saw Kitty Hawk and said, “Let’s fly.” Who looked at the moon and said, “We’ll be there in a decade.”
Talk is cheap. But we did all of those things. And more.
We’ve never waited for permission to innovate. We’ve never asked the world’s opinion before speaking our minds. We’ve always been a little brash, a little loud, a little ambitious — actually a whole lot ambitious.
Has it gotten us into trouble from time to time? Absolutely. No nation gets everything right. But success comes to those who believe too much over those who believe too little.
Because the truth is this: greatness doesn’t start with perfection. It starts with belief. A nation doesn’t become the best because it already is — it becomes the best because its people refuse to accept anything less.
If America had been perfect from the start, we would’ve never rooted hundreds of thousands of natives from their land; would’ve never imported slaves; would’ve never done a lot of the things our forefathers did. If you’re looking for America’s blemishes, you don’t have to look hard to find them. We were an imperfect nation founded by imperfect men. But we never stopped striving for perfection.
Even today, 249 years later, it’s hard to read the Declaration of Independence and not get chill bumps. Jefferson’s words were poetic and majestic — and audacious. We didn’t put them fully into practice right away. We didn’t put them fully into practice for far too long. But, as a people and as a nation, we refused to accept anything less. We had the audacity to believe, and we kept reaching for greatness.
For all our divisions, all our culture wars, all our imperfections, we still wake up every day and chase something bigger than ourselves. We still send aid when disaster strikes — sometimes halfway around the world. We still fight for causes. We still show up for our neighbors. We still push the boundaries of science. We’re still the place where people dream of coming when they want a better life.
Not because we’re perfect. But because we still believe.
In America, freedom isn’t just a word, but a messy, noble, all-encompassing idea that every person has the right to live as they choose, speak as they wish, and pursue happiness in their own way.
In America, opportunity isn’t just a word, but a birthright. America is perhaps the only nation on earth that has the audacity to believe a janitor’s daughter can become a CEO, that the son of immigrants can become a senator, that a kid from a trailer park or an inner-city tenement can rise to the top if they’re willing to work for it.
In America, we believe in redemption — that no matter how far someone has fallen, personally or nationally, there’s always a path forward. Always a next chapter.
And we believe, perhaps more than anything else, in reinvention. We’ve never been afraid to tear down the old and build something new. That spirit of constant becoming, of never-settling, is baked into our DNA.
When we drape ourselves in red, white and blue on the Fourth of July, it’s not to brag about what we’ve accomplished — okay, maybe it is, just a little bit — but to celebrate that never-settling pursuit of a more perfect union … that pursuit of liberty … that pursuit of greatness.
We don’t believe that we’re the world’s only great nation. But we have the audacity to believe that we’re the best. And we have the guts to believe that better is always possible. That’s a powerful combination that makes us unstoppable. Every great American movement has been fueled by this same conviction. It’s what pushed abolitionists to challenge slavery. It’s what pushed suffragists to demand the vote. It’s what pushed civil rights marchers to change the course of our nation’s history.
Tonight, on a hot summer night in commons areas of small towns throughout this land, there will be kids watching fireworks who have the audacity to believe that they, too, will someday accomplish something great. And many of them will.
In their defiance of the crown and the monarchy, our forefathers had the audacity to believe in something better. And every generation since has carried that torch — sometimes stumbling, sometimes soaring, but always moving forward.
So let us never be shamed into apologizing for American pride. Let us never lose the audacity to deck ourselves out in the gaudiest combinations of red, white and blue on this great day. Let us never flinch when someone says this is the greatest country on earth — not because we’ve always lived up to that promise, but because we’ve never stopped trying to.
On this Fourth of July, we don’t just celebrate who we are. We celebrate who we dare to become.
Because the audacity to believe we’re the best isn’t arrogance.
It’s our origin. It’s our DNA.
And still — after all these years — it’s our guiding light.