America Is Great Because WE Are Good

Originally published on Substack. Republished here for archival and reference purposes.

America Is Great Because WE Are Good

-Trust, Liberty, and the Moral Center of the Republic

America is great not because we are powerful, wealthy, or feared.
America is great because—at our best—we are good.

Good to one another.
Good to our neighbors.
Good stewards of the extraordinary experiment entrusted to us by those who came before us.

There is a line, often attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, that says America is great because America is good. Whether or not those were his exact words, the truth behind them is unmistakable. Our greatness has never been guaranteed by force or dominance. It has always flowed from character.

And character requires trust.

Trust in ourselves—that we are capable of self-government.
Trust in our neighbors—that disagreement does not make them enemies.
Trust in our institutions—that while imperfect, they exist to secure liberty, not extinguish it.

This is where clarity matters—especially now.

The United States is not a democracy.
It is a constitutional republic—and that distinction was intentional.

The founders understood something we increasingly forget; unchecked power is dangerous, even when exercised by a majority. Majority rule without restraint can become just another form of tyranny. A republic, by contrast, is designed to protect the liberty of the individual even when doing so is unpopular.

After the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind of government had been created. His reply was both hopeful and conditional:

“A republic—if you can keep it.”

That condition still applies.

A republic depends on more than elections. It depends on norms, guardrails, and institutions—but above all, it depends on mutual trust and moral restraint. It assumes we will not use power simply because we can. It requires us to remember that today’s majority is tomorrow’s minority.

Yet, more and more, we drift toward a dangerous instinct: if we have the numbers, we should impose the will.

That instinct may feel righteous in the moment—but it always boomerangs.

Precedents set to silence opponents, bypass institutions, or override individual liberty never disappear. They wait. And when power inevitably shifts—as it always does—those same tools are turned back on the very people who once celebrated them.

This is not good for conservatives.
It is not good for progressives.
It is not good for anyone who expects to live together in a civil society tomorrow.

As I often say: you cannot hate others into believing what you believe or seeing the world the way you do. Coercion does not persuade. Contempt does not convert. And power, wielded without principle, corrodes everyone it touches.

More than a century and a half ago, Abraham Lincoln warned us plainly:

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

He was right then. He is right now.

We cannot continue calling ourselves the greatest nation ever created while half the country despises and distrusts the other half—and vice versa. A republic cannot survive when fellow citizens are viewed not merely as wrong, but as illegitimate or evil.

And we cannot be a “shining city on a hill” while actively undermining the foundations that hold that city together.

It is also worth remembering where our strength—and our rights—actually come from.

They do not come from government.
They do not come from a president, a court, or a party.

Our rights come from our Creator. Government exists not to grant them, but to secure them—to create the conditions in which free people can pursue their individual and collective potential.

When we forget this, we place far too much hope—or fear—in any one leader or institution. We begin to treat political opponents as existential threats rather than fellow citizens. And we lose sight of the moral center that makes liberty sustainable.

This is why trust matters so deeply.

We are living through a profound trust crisis—toward elections, media, medicine, education, government, and even one another. Disagreement is healthy. Some skepticism is healthy. But when distrust and disdain become our default posture, it erodes the civic architecture that allows a diverse people to remain free.

Democracy requires participation and opinion.
A republic requires a strong degree of good faith.

Good faith is the refusal to dehumanize. It is the decision to see fellow citizens not as threats to be crushed, but as neighbors to be argued with. Without it, distrust hardens into hatred—and hatred is incapable of building anything durable. Left unchecked, it often does something worse: it spills over into violence, as we have seen far too often of late.

That is the deeper civic truth behind what Martin Luther King Jr. so powerfully reminded us:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Being “good” does not mean being naïve.
It does not mean blind faith in institutions or unquestioning loyalty to leaders.
It means choosing restraint over rage, principle over power, and responsibility over resentment.

It means remembering that citizenship is not a team sport, it is a shared obligation.

America’s greatness has always rested on ordinary people doing something extraordinary: disagreeing fiercely while remaining committed to the same constitutional order. Protecting liberty not only when it benefits us, but when it safeguards them.

If we want to remain great, we must recover the courage to be good again—especially when it’s hard, especially when trust feels risky, and especially when power tempts us to abandon restraint.

This is not a one-time fix.
It is a long walk home.