The America We Were Promised: A Screed Against the Undoing of the Republic

 

Full disclosure: This is a screed. I am at my wits' end, and I usually write them down. What will happen this coming January is beyond my capacity for heartbreak. The following language will be harsh. The following ideals are not radical enough for success, so they are the best I can muster for the platform. I encourage your feedback, but you better come correct….

Let’s just get it out of the way: whatever this country is about to become, this is not America. Not the America that was promised, not the America that was once an ideal worth aspiring to, and certainly not the America I—or any thinking person—can stomach. What’s worse, it seems we’ve entered an age where those responsible for this farcical undoing of the republic are doubling down on their own absurdities, crafting a narrative so brazenly dishonest that it would almost be funny if it weren’t so deeply dangerous.

This is not hyperbole; it’s existential dread, laced with disgust. I walk around with the weight of it every day, a knot in my stomach at the realization that the “great experiment” has become a parody of itself—a nation purportedly by the people, for the people, now wholly owned by a few well-dressed pickpockets in expensive suits. The ruling class isn’t just robbing us blind; they’re standing over the corpse of democracy with the murder weapon in hand, daring us to call them out.

And many won’t. The press, once the supposed guardian of truth, has devolved into little more than a gallery of cheerleaders for sycophants, lending credence to dangerous ideologies under the guise of “balance.” When the fourth estate collapses under the weight of its own cowardice, what hope do we have for the rest of the guardrails? I’m not being melodramatic here. I’m a 56-year-old Black man in America. I know a thing or two about survival. But even for me, watching this country unravel feels like a fresh kind of hell.

Let’s discuss this far-right carnival of horrors masquerading as governance. The narrative they’ve peddled to the masses is clear: the federal government’s role in protecting the citizenry is a sham, and the only salvation lies in dismantling it so they can privatize the nation and sell it back to us piece by piece. This is a bait-and-switch of historic proportions, where the wolves have not just infiltrated the henhouse—they’ve set up a Chick-fil-A in the front yard and are charging admission.

And what’s most galling is their weaponization of an idea that once stood for something: freedom. Theirs isn’t freedom for all; it’s freedom for the few. Freedom to oppress, exploit, and enrich themselves while the rest of us fight over scraps. Freedom to enforce their warped interpretation of morality on the rest of us, cloaked in the language of Christian values that are so far removed from the gospel they claim to revere that it would be laughable if it weren’t so insidious.

Let’s be clear: America is not a Christian nation. It wasn’t founded as one, it doesn’t function as one, and it damn sure doesn’t owe its citizens adherence to some bastardized version of your gospel. The separation of church and state wasn’t a suggestion; it was a necessity born from centuries of tyranny in the name of God. Yet here we are, forced to live under the boot of corporate evangelism, where the holy trinity is White, male, and obscenely wealthy.

It’s enough to make you despair, but despair isn’t an option. Not for me. Not for anyone who believes in the core idea of America—not the sanitized myth, but the idea of it. The messy, flawed, beautiful experiment that promised everyone a shot and refused to let any single ideology dominate the rest. That America wasn’t perfect, but it was worth fighting for.

And fight, we must. Because the halls of power, corrupted beyond recognition, will not save us. Those halls belong to the highest bidder now, and the auction was over long before we ever saw the invitation. The restoration of this country—the return to its core values—will not be brokered by politicians. It will come from the ground up, and yes, it might take revolutionary bloodshed to remind the nation what it is supposed to be.

But make no mistake: The fight isn’t just against tyranny; it’s for an idea that’s been lost in the noise of corporate greed and evangelical overreach. If there’s any justice left in the world, we’ll take back this nation and remake it in the image of its founding promise: liberty and justice for all.

And yes, I’ll say it: let’s make America great again. Not the America of gilded-age robber barons, Jim Crow, or evangelical puritanism, but the America of its truest ideals. A place where every person gets a shot, no one is oppressed by someone else’s “values,” and freedom isn’t the exclusive property of the powerful.

That’s the America I’m fighting for. Are you?