In 2024, the U.S. national debt is over $35 trillion. The debt per citizen is over $100,000, for actual taxpayers it’s close to $270,000. Few officials in our government attempt to cut back spending, reduce personnel, or abolish useless departments and agencies. What would be a priority in nearly every indebted household in America is ignored in Washington, D.C.

Trust in our federal government is at near-record lows. Given the coverups and misinformation of the last five years—from the COVID deceptions to the mysteries surrounding the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump—that figure comes as no surprise.

A Statista survey last year revealed that American patriotism continues to decline, particularly among the young. Some link this diminished love of country to the method of teaching American history in our public schools and universities. Certainly the ongoing decline of test scores among secondary students in that subject reveal widespread ignorance of the past.     

In 2020, a USAFacts Team found that only 23 percent of Americans ages 17-24 were eligible to enlist in the armed forces. Obesity, chronic disease, educational deficiencies, drug abuse, and criminal records prevented the other 77 percent from putting on a uniform. Meanwhile, this same article reports that the top three reasons of those willing to serve are the pay, future educational opportunities, and the chance to travel. Patriotism, anyone?

The tsunami of illegal immigrants over the past four years has brought new government debt to the U.S., undermined the meaning of citizenship, and increased crime rates along with the possibilities for terrorist acts. A country which cannot protect its citizens and its borders is a country which has only disdain for its traditions and laws.

This tidal wave of illegal immigrants has also wreaked havoc and poverty on many American cities, which were already sinking below the weight of social programs, drugs, crime, and homelessness. Cities like D.C., San Francisco, Chicago, and others are noted today not for their beauty and culture, but for their murder rates and their decaying streets. In nearly all cases, Democrats have governed these failing municipalities.  

This is only a partial list of America’s torn seams and patched garments, but these issues alone should raise two questions: What do Donald Trump’s supporters mean when they proclaim “Make America Great Again?” And does America deserve to be great?

Though a supporter of former President Trump, I confess I have doubts about the MAGA slogan. The emphasis is primarily on the economy, which is vital to the health of our republic, yet I question whether America will achieve true greatness without some sort of moral foundation. Christianity once provided that bedrock, but has largely disappeared from the public forum, driven away by laws, mockery, ignorance, the philosophy of relativism, and radical individualism in which rights exist without responsibilities. Without some sort of moral compass, some

general consensus about what it means to be an American, and a shared knowledge of our history, a republic based on wealth alone will never endure.

In addition, the dismal figures and circumstances cited at the beginning of this article constitute an enormous stumbling block to any claims of greatness. “It’s the economy, stupid,” that trope devised by James Carville during Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign, is still applied during this year’s election, but without some vision of Americanism beyond material welfare, it strikes me as a sideline chant for a dead-end game.

We have become a materialistic people who want to buy a house, but have forgotten how to make that house a home.

Forty-six years ago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn delivered an address at Harvard University that caused a rucus among American intellectuals and cultural gurus. Today his warnings about Western decadence and dysfunction are more pertinent than ever. In an article for the Acton Institute, senior editor Joe Carter does readers a great service by extracting 20 key quotes from the Russian writer’s speech, all of which deserve our attention and contemplation. Here is number 19 on Carter’s list:

It is imperative to reappraise the scale of the usual human values; its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President’s performance should be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or to the availability of gasoline. Only by the voluntary nurturing in ourselves of freely accepted and serene self-restraint can mankind rise above the world stream of materialism.

Does America deserve to be great again? The presidential election in November, where voters have a clear choice between the left-wing Kamala Harris and centrist Donald Trump, will partially answer that question. But for America to become truly great again, I suspect that Americans must first become good again.