Hey everybody, happy Friday.
We’re going to do things a little bit different today for the holiday. I just want to spend a few minutes talking about the country, and about the Fourth of July. And since the holiday falls on a Saturday, I wanted to get this to you today and then, hopefully, you won’t even look at your inbox tomorrow.
TRANSCRIPT:
Two hundred and fifty years ago a group of men signed their names to a document that put their lives at risk. It was treason. If the war had gone the other way, they could have been killed. When they wrote that all men are created equal, they weren’t describing the world they lived in. They were making a bet. A promise written down before anyone knew if it could be kept.
And it hasn’t always been kept. Not even close. There were people held in slavery within sight of where that document was signed. Women couldn’t vote. This country has spent two and a half centuries arguing about who counts, who belongs, who gets included in that word “all.”
I don’t say that to run the country down. I say it because I think that’s the actual story of America. Not that we started perfect. We started with a promise we hadn’t earned yet, and every generation since has had to decide whether to keep chasing it or let it go.
I flew missions overseas. I served in Congress. I’ve seen this country at some of its lowest and some of its best. And what I’ve come to realize is that America isn’t the buildings in Washington. It isn’t the politicians, and God knows it isn’t the cable news fights. It’s you. It’s us.
It’s the people who coach little league on a Saturday. The nurses working the holiday shift this weekend while the rest of us grill in the backyard. The teachers, the veterans, the folks who show up to city council meetings about issues in their neighborhoods.
That’s the country. It always has been.
We’re living through a hard stretch. I’m not going to pretend otherwise, and you wouldn’t believe me if I did. There’s a lot of anger out there. A lot of people who’ve decided the other half of the country is the enemy. And I understand where it comes from. But I want to say something today that I really mean.
The person down the street who votes differently than you is not your enemy. They love their kids the same way you love yours. They want to leave something better behind, same as you. We have been sold the idea that we hate each other, and I don’t think most of us actually do.
The founders didn’t agree with each other either. They argued constantly. They compromised on things they shouldn’t have and fought over things that seem small now. But they managed to build something anyway, because they believed the project was bigger than any one of them.
That’s what I’d ask you to hold onto today.
This country has survived a civil war. It survived a depression. It survived the fight to end slavery and the fight to give women the vote and a hundred other moments where people thought it might all come apart. It didn’t come apart. Because ordinary people decided it was worth saving.
So today, put the news down. Forget the arguments. Go find the people you love and be with them. Watch the fireworks. Eat a little bit too much. Let yourself feel proud of a country that has never been finished and has never stopped trying to get better.
The promise is still out there. And it’s still ours to keep.
Happy Fourth of July. I’ll see you back here on Monday.
