On our peaceful, suburban cul-de-sac Saturday, the Solaire infrared grill was parked conveniently on the sidewalk next to the fire hydrant, just in case, and soon, the cheeseburgers and hot dogs were flying onto plates, along with all the requisite 4th of July menu accoutrements. Homemade ice cream was churned, and as the sun set in the west, Independence Day was broadcast onto the garage door until it was dark enough to release the pyrotechnic Kraken.
One of my neighbors, a British national long-married to an American with two kids, dogs, cats, and various other smaller rodents, came out wearing a T-shirt just to get a rise out of me. It said, "Make America Great Britain Again." We are very good friends, and as is the case when we sit down and chew the proverbial fat, the subject of politics came up.
If he were to become a citizen and register to vote, he would probably be a libertarian. He's very much a 'pox on both houses' sort of chap. I don't think he's much of a fan of any of our recent presidents all that much, and certainly policy issues make up part of the reason. But his overarching concern about the future of the country is how polarized he believes we've become. He saw the political speeches over the weekend - the one offered by Comrade Zohran Mamdani in New York City, and then Donald Trump's address from Mt. Rushmore. He can't stand that everything and everyone is so divisive, and believes virtually all of our significant politicians play into that divisiveness for their own advantages instead of working to help the country move forward.
You can certainly make the case, looking back 273 years, that George Washington was a legitimately unifying president. He was not a member of any political party, since parties didn't exist until after his time in office. Not even all of the former British colonists were on board with the whole idea of striking out on their own with a new country, and it took a character like Washington to be a stabilizing force, giving the Constitution a chance to be implemented.
Abraham Lincoln was a unifying president in that he was willing to wage the bloodiest war in our history for four years specifically to keep the Union together. When the North finally won, his expressed purpose was not to punish the South for making the wrong choice. He desperately wanted to reunite the country. And he was immediately assassinated before seeing his vision take shape.
And that's it for the unifying presidents. We've had many that were good, some that were bad, several meh ones thrown in, but the unifying tag, especially in my lifetime, is not one that gets applied to anyone, Democrat or Republican. Ronald Reagan won two elections handily, the second being a 49-state landslide. He was a terrific communicator and extremely charismatic. But he was very divisive. He had an idea for how to realign the country according to his three-legged stool of smaller government economics, Evangelical social conservatism, and a robust anti-Communist foreign policy, but fought with Democrats every step of the way.
The point I'm trying to make, as I did Saturday, is that in this quarter-millennia-old experimental republic, the freedoms that we enshrined in the Constitution allow for all sorts of different thoughts and ideas to form, recirculate, grow, and/or die. In a public society where all points of view are protected as speech, even the repulsive ones, I'm not sure it's a good idea to wish for a country where everyone is on the exact same page. In fact, it sounds rather Big Brother or Animal Farm-esque.
Is President Trump divisive? Without question. No one has run three separate campaigns for the nation's highest office and simultaneously generated record numbers of people voting for him and record numbers voting against him. Part of the animus against Trump is on policy, but the vast majority of it is personal. People who don't like Trump hate him. But as we look at America's 250th birthday weekend, and our politics in the last year leading up to it, is Trump being divisive for the right reasons? I think the case can be made that he is.
When Comrade Mamdani completed his ascension to Gracie Manor by winning the New York City Mayoral race, with all the promises of free housing, free busing, and the warm embrace of collectivism, provided you set the thermostat to 78 degrees, Trump welcomed him to the White House. The President and Mamdani were gracious towards each other during the visit, but soon after, the President began to sound the alarm bells about what was coming for the country's largest city.
By April, after Mamdani announced a pied-a-terre tax on second homes and other tax-the-rich schemes, Trump became much more vocal. He said New Yorkers would 'flee the city', Mamdani's policies would 'destroy New York', it had 'no chance' of success, and 'this stuff doesn't work'. Then came Mamdani's Marxist reinforcements.
Graham "My Totenkopf" Platner, the Nazi tattoo-wearing communist running against Susan Collins in Maine for United States Senate, won his primary, officially becoming the Democratic Party's nominee. Less than a month later, three Mamdani-endorsed members of the Democratic Socialists of America won their Congressional primaries in New York against incumbent Democrats in safe seats - Brad Lander, Claire Valdez, and Darializa Avila Chevalier.
In August, barring common sense breaking out amongst Michigan's Democratic voters, Abdul El-Sayed will be the nominee for Senate. Francesca Hong is leading two other Democrats for Wisconsin's governor primary in August. Melat Kiros in Colorado is another radical running for Congress. There are many others. It's no longer just Mamdani as the token Marxist to mock. All of a sudden, there's a whole flock of them, and they're poised to consume what's left of the Democratic Party. It's no longer funny. When it was just one - Mamdani, Trump tried the unifying approach. Now, the gloves are coming off.
Mamdani spoke to the nation from behind the George Washington desk, flanked by ten recent immigrants to the United States. We'll get to his message in a minute, but the mockery couldn't be stopped. Of the dozen people – Mamdani, his ten comrades, and the dummy behind the camera filming it – no one seemed to have an understanding of how a desk works.
He’s been trained by his political handlers to smile almost incessantly. It’s an obvious forced smile to make his odious policies seem reasonable and safe.
— L A R R Y (@LarryOConnor) July 3, 2026
Here, he’s lost the smile. The result? He and his message convey their inherent hostility. pic.twitter.com/6QesVnKp1w
Typically, one sits on the side of the desk that has the drawers and not the side that has backer board preventing guests from seeing your legs while you're sitting comfortably. His message, though, was not winsome. It was not uplifting. It was dark, angry, and ominous. Unifying, it was not.
To the current crop of godless, Jew-hating communists acquiring or seeking to acquire power all over the country, there is nothing to celebrate about the founding of the country. The only glimmer of hope they see is whatever Utopia they can fashion out of the remnants of the country once they've brought about their revolution.
Kasie Hunt on CNN tried no less than five times to get El-Sayed in Michigan to fix his 'defund the police' problem.
"Why did you delete the tweets?" @kasie presses @AbdulElSayed on his since-deleted 2020 tweets supporting the “defund the police” movement.
— The Arena on CNN (@TheArenaCNN) July 2, 2026
"Judge me by my work," he says. pic.twitter.com/Ruuv4bvEHJ
That's the thing about communists. Things that become a barrier to entry get disappeared, whether they be people or tweets.
Claire Valdez, one of the New York Congressional Mamdani three, had this to say about the nation's 250th.
Modern Democratic Party: The Fourth of July is a fight to free Palestine. pic.twitter.com/izQq1XudwC
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) July 5, 2026
You might think that in the Badger State, Wisconsinites have a lot of economic issues to work through. But Francesca Hong, appearing on a podcast, has different ideas.
Francesca Hong: We have to ensure that we're fighting for the pro-Palestine movement and that folks understand that the liberation of Palestinians is intrinsically tied to the liberation of all of us pic.twitter.com/YA9aKrcS8Z
— DSA Watch (@DSA_Watch) July 4, 2026
On a weekend of celebration for a country that's done right by the world for a long time, Rep. Pramila Jayapal naturally wanted us to instead consider the strengths of Communist Cuba.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA): “Cuba has shown us what a universal health care system actually looks like. Until this happened and despite all the challenges, Cuba had done an amazing job of preventing maternal mortality and neonatal mortality, cancer, all of the things that we…
— DSA Watch (@DSA_Watch) July 2, 2026
Melat Kiros is running in Colorado on the 'the U.S. had it coming on 9/11' platform.
Melat Kiros, who just defeated Colorado Democrat Diana DeGette, thinks that 9/11 was America's fault.
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) July 1, 2026
This is the Democrat Party. pic.twitter.com/4FmZ9PuYLp
And it's not just the candidates running for office weaving together all the negatives of asset seizure, bigger government control over your daily life, and antisemitism. It's the community organizers, the next generation of Barack Obamas, if you will, that are standing up and speaking out. Canary Mission, an international agency that highlights and documents antisemitism whenever and wherever it raises its head, compiled this video from the last week or two.
"The most important thing we can do is take that (American) empire down from within"
— Canary Mission (@canarymission) July 5, 2026
DSA members make it clear what their goal is: destroying America. pic.twitter.com/Txy5Na21UG
'Overthrow our American empire'. 'U.S. imperialism can't be reformed, it has to be overthrown'. 'Hit the kill switch on U.S. imperialism.' We have to 'take down that empire from within'. Again, not exactly a unifying message.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke in April to the University of Texas, Austin, and spent 16 minutes talking about how socialism and progressivism are antithetical to the Declaration and the Constitution. His conclusion is that the two ideologies cannot co-exist in this republic. It's worth every bit of time to watch.
🔥NEW: Clarence Thomas — full remarks on progressivism, its foundations, history, and impact from his appearance at University of Texas at Austin:
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) April 16, 2026
“Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao were all intertwined with the rise of progressivism, and all were opposed to the natural rights… pic.twitter.com/FF6dukVL26
Now we get President Trump dialing up the rhetorical heat on the rise of the communists, what they stand for, and why this election will have to be won to keep them from power and implementing their agenda.
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) June 25, 2026
The President has continued in press gaggles almost every day to call out the communists and the Democratic Party for allowing them to take over their party, but it wasn't until Friday night at Mt. Rushmore, after Mamdani's address, that Trump began to frame the midterms as a fight to keep a failed, yet invigorated ideology from metastasizing further.
.@POTUS: Yet as we approach this magnificent anniversary, we see our American identity under a renewed attack. A generation after we fought and won the Cold War against the menace of Communism, there is now a resurgence of the Communist menace in our land—including from newcomers… pic.twitter.com/lS0k3MSQIP
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 4, 2026
It's very tough stuff, and it also happens to be true. Divisive? To the communists, very much so. And I want it to be that way. Divisiveness is not bad if you're separating good from evil. I do not want to engage in unifying with the communists. They can only be defeated and disgraced. There have been lots of times in world history when people have had to make a choice on which side they stand. Fortunately, thus far, we've rejected communism at every turn, although we had a pretty close call in the early 20th Century.
On the Mall in Washington, D.C. for Independence Day, Trump gave another unifying speech, but one that showcased brave Americans who fought and died to protect America from previous confrontations with communism.
.@POTUS recognizes Korean War veterans Cpl. Patrick Finn, and PFC Rudy Meekins, who fought bravely at the Chosin Reservoir while greatly outnumbered by Communist forces.
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 5, 2026
"America will NEVER be a Communist country." 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/zpZCqvrW7V
There were plenty of passages from both speeches that were soaring in their rhetoric.
.@POTUS at Mount Rushmore:
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 4, 2026
On this anniversary, we must remember that American liberty has not endured for 250 years merely because of words on paper; liberty has prevailed here because of the culture and character of the people who declared it, defended it, and preserved it.… pic.twitter.com/aAQWSTynwh
And this.
.@POTUS: The world has seen the great empires, vast kingdoms, mighty nations, and terrible tyrants — they came and they went. But after two-and-a-half centuries, this American Republic still stands tall and strong.
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 5, 2026
This American Flag still waves proud and free and beautiful.
We… pic.twitter.com/zeSLBND26D
Of course, these racist crackers were marching around Washington and riding on subways, acting as the modern-day equivalent of the Klan.
White nationalists are marching down the streets of Washington, D.C. on America's 250th. pic.twitter.com/uXhHYJ6I21
— Aaron Parnas (@AaronParnas) July 4, 2026
Much online was made about them while very, very few had ever heard of them before Saturday. No one, and I mean no one, championed their cause. They were criticized, jeered at, mocked, and ridiculed by everyone in the country. There was no subgroup online celebrating how neat is was that white mask-wearing racists were on the Metro staring at a Black woman sitting down. The revulsion was as unanimous as anything you'll read on X, and that's good. I'm okay with everyone unifying against evil. It would be totally terrific if we could have that same participation when it comes to fighting an antisemitic, anti-American regime in Tehran that has been murdering Americans for 47 years. It would be wonderful if there was one elected Democrat besides John Fetterman threatening to leave the Democratic Party if antisemitism is adopted onto their national platform in the way the DSA-sponsored crop of candidates wish.
Until then, I'm okay with leaders being divisive. One of the many magical moments from Saturday was John Ondrasik, the creative force behind Five For Fighting, singing his signature song, "Superman", on the deck of the U.S.S. Nimitz in New York harbor accompanied on piano by Alon Ohel. Ohel, an Israeli, spent last July 4th, and the one before that in a Hamas tunnel below Gaza. His parents put a piano in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv during his captivity, and John saw a picture of him as a child wearing a Superman costume on a visit there and played on that piano.
John worked tirelessly to keep Alon's name, as well as all the other hostages, in the public sphere as much as possible, and promised that one day soon when he was released, he would eventually perform Superman with him. Thanks to the work of Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and the State Department, the living hostages were freed, and the remains of those who did not survive the kidnapping and torture were eventually accounted for and returned to Israeli soil. Ohel lost sight in one eye in the October 7th attacks and is still recovering from two years of captivity, but on Saturday took his place at the piano next to John, and they did perform Superman.
On the historic USS Nimitz, on our 250th bday, I performed Superman for our amazing @USNavy, @FDNY heroes, and Gold Star Families with former hostage Alon Ohel. Alon is a miracle, alive because of the President, @SecRubio & others. America has a history of making miracles. 🇺🇸❤️ pic.twitter.com/pV3puYxLlF
— John Ondrasik (@johnondrasik) July 5, 2026
This, to me, is a clear delineation point. If you are suddenly reaching for the tissues, we can unify. We probably will never agree on everything all the time, but if we can recognize this as celebrating America for doing a very, very good thing after a horrible evil took place, there can be unity of purpose between us. If, however, you see this as propaganda, ignoring the plight of Palestine, or an event secretly funded by AIPAC money, then there can be no reconciliation. You must be defeated. If you're an American citizen, you certainly have the right to hold and espouse your views. But I will move Heaven and earth to make sure your views do not win the day.
Going back to my neighbor's desire to see the country come together under a unifying leader, we are long down the road of realistically expecting that to happen. It won't. There is too much evil in this world, and sadly, too much evil still within the country. There is no man or woman that can accomplish that goal without first defeating and removing the evil.
Despite the naysayers who repeatedly press the case that America was not founded as a Christian nation, the evidence from the patriots that stitched the nation together, including Washington, was very aware of God's providence upon them and what God's plan of salvation meant. Christianity was very much at the center of debate 250 years ago, and it was that appeal to God that helped unify 13 disparate colonies into a new nation.
And not to get too preachy, there are going to be two figures at some point in the future that promise to unify not just a country, but the world. The first one, the world will fall in love with...for a while. He'll offer unity, but will deliver death and destruction in his wake. Seven years later, another figure will appear with a message of unity, but only after removing the evil from the world.
Unity is a wonderful concept, but disastrous and calamitous most times it's applied. Unity is a bottom-up proposition, not a top-down one. Unity begins when you are first focused on the Unifier. Without that connection to God and getting your own spiritual house in order, you're going to be susceptible to whatever Comrade Mamdani and his communist minions have to offer.
America has a very rich history, one steeped in faith and morality. Its missteps are several and magnified by this same anti-American progressive crowd, but we still remain in God's favor because we've maintained the principles He put on the hearts of flawed men all those years ago. If we seek as a nation to remain in that place of God's favor, the future prospects of the country are strong indeed, and our leadership problem will sort itself.
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