Independence Day Thoughts During a Turbulent Year

Tonight, President Trump will celebrate America’s independence and our nation’s 244^th birthday with a massive firework display at Mount Rushmore. The faces of four great American presidents whose leadership helped make our country exceptional are sculpted into what has been called a shrine to our republic.

This celebration could not come at a better time.

Our democratic values are being challenged by increasingly intolerant radicals.  These Leftists misrepresent our history and seek to impose socialism and censorship on those who disagree.  As we have seen over the last two months, the radical Left is prepared to do this through mob rule and violence.

South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg praised President Trump in a July 3 Fox News Opinion op-ed for restoring the 4^th of July fireworks display at Mount Rushmore and for attending the celebration as a defeat for “cancel culture” – efforts by the Left to discredit and silence ideas, people and organizations they disagree with.  Ravnsborg noted that Mount Rushmore was an early victim of cancel culture when the Obama administration nixed fireworks at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in 2010 for absurd environmental concerns. Ravnsborg rejected the Left’s criticism of the Memorial when he wrote:

“Mount Rushmore is a gateway to American exceptionalism. It is a larger-than-life reminder that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln – legends of leadership and democracy – were, despite any personal shortcomings, indeed larger than life and graced with a vision of what America can be.”

Despite the insistence by the Left and the mainstream media that our nation is hopelessly unjust, the United States is an ever-improving great experiment. The vast majority of Americans know this. So does the rest of the world, which is why the United States is by far the leading destination for immigrants.  Entrepreneur Elon Musk, born in South Africa, expressed this in a 2020 interview about his success: “America is the land of opportunity – there is no other country where I could have done this.”

But the American experiment is fragile.

On the final day of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, a local resident asked Benjamin Franklin, “What do we have, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Although most Americans reject the current attacks on our country and history by the radical Left and the mainstream media, their views will take root permanently – the roots are already a half-century old – unless we forcefully reject them. This means not just rejecting the recent lawlessness by mobs led by violent extremist groups like Black Live Matters (BLM) and Antifa but speaking out to defend our democratic system and history of freedom.  This must include keeping the Left’s America-hating, socialist narrative out of our schools. That narrative rejects the entire concept of Western civilization.

We live in a dangerous world with enemies who would like to end the American experiment and our status as the world’s superpower. Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.  It will try to do so again in 2020, along with other nations, especially China. America’s adversaries are encouraging BLM and Antifa to undermine our country. China is openly using BLM to bash the U.S. government and discredit liberal democracies to deflect criticism of their  human rights violations.

America faces growing international security threats, including the coronavirus pandemic.  Russia and China have continued to expand and improve their nuclear arsenals while America struggles to keep up. North Korea has not ended its nuclear and ballistic missiles programs. Iran continues to develop its missile program and likely has robust clandestine nuclear weapons. The threat from radical Islamist terrorism continues and these terrorist groups likely are developing more potent attacks.

China is and likely will remain the most serious external security threat to the United States and the world. China’s ruling Communist Party is not interested in peaceful co-existence or free and fair trade. Beijing is using diplomatic, military, economic, cyber, and espionage pressure and tools to supplant the United States as the global superpower and install a Chinese-led, anti-democratic world order. Recent signs of this include China’s intensified effort to claim the South China Sea as part of its territory and its military attack on India, and taking advantage of America’s distraction by the pandemic and domestic unrest to crush what was left of Hong Kong’s democracy.

Fortunately, we have a president who recognizes foreign threats and is taking steps to defend our security and freedom. President Trump has built up and modernized our military, greatly improving readiness. The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review is a strategy this administration has acted on to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal after years of neglect. The Trump administration destroyed the ISIS state in Syria and Iraq that emerged during the Obama years and used military strikes to punish Syria’s Assad regime for using chemical weapons against its people. President Trump ended President Obama’s appeasement and enabling of Iran by exiting the flawed 2015 nuclear deal.

President Trump also has called China out on its exploitative trade practices and intellectual property theft, using tariffs to press for free and fair trade. The U.S. and China agreed to a “Phase 1” trade deal in January that addressed some of these concerns. Trump officials plan to open talks on a broader “Phase 2” deal if Mr. Trump wins reelection.

The winner of the 2020 presidential election must continue and build upon these policies.

As we celebrate the birth of our nation this weekend, we honor an exceptional nation that is a global beacon of freedom, liberty and opportunity. But the success of the American experiment will not continue unless we aggressively defend our democratic ideals, history of freedom and our national security.

Happy 4^th of July America!

Fred Fleitz, president of the Center for Security Policy, served in 2018 as deputy assistant to the president and to the chief of staff of the National Security Council. He previously held national-security jobs with the CIA, the DIA, the Department of State, and the House Intelligence Committee staff. Twitter @fredfleitz.