What passes for intellectual heft at the Atlantic is any criticism of President Donald Trump. In the Atlantic’s pages and its digital fare, you can read the now-discredited musings of David Frum, who helped bring us the endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; the inane foreign policy arguments of Max Boot; the interventionist prescriptions of Anne Applebaum; and now, the democracy promotion of political science professor Brian Klaas, who, in a recent article, blames President Trump for killing “American democracy promotion.”
If Klaas is correct, that is one more reason that Americans need to thank President Trump.
Klaas’ first priority is using American treasure and blood to promote his chimerical notions of global democracy and universal human rights.
One would have thought that the debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq would have humbled our nation’s democracy promoters — but they haven’t. One would have thought that the failed foreign policy of Jimmy Carter would have humbled those who wish to make “human rights” the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy — but it didn’t. One would have thought that the chaos facilitated by the so-called “Arab Spring” would engender prudence and introspection among the democracy promoters — but it is not so.
Professor Klaas wants the world to become democratic and for U.S. foreign policy to lead the effort in bringing the globe to the promised land.
The Trump administration, Klaas writes, has “turn[ed] against a long-standing tradition of Western democracy promotion.”
Perhaps Klaas has never read George Washington’s Farewell Address, in which he counseled his countrymen to conduct foreign policy based solely on the nation’s interests. Or perhaps he missed John Quincy Adams’ July 4, 1821, address, in which he cautioned against going abroad in search of monsters to destroy and reminded his listeners that America is the well-wisher of freedom to all but the champion only of her own.
Perhaps Klaas believes that Wilsonianism is a “long-standing” American tradition, but in reality, it is mostly limited to starry-eyed liberal internationalists and neoconservatives.
Klaas mentions the “democracy boom” under President Bill Clinton, which was nothing more than a temporary consequence of America’s victory in the Cold War. Yet Klaas thinks it was the beginning of “shifting international norms” where freedom and democracy triumphed in “the ideological battle against rival models of governance” and “had become an inexorable force.”
Here, Klaas is likely referring to Francis Fukuyama’s discredited theory of the “end of history.” We have since discovered, however, that history didn’t die and that democracy is fragile, especially in places and among civilizations that have little democratic experience.
Fukuyama was wrong, but Samuel Huntington was right when he wrote about the coming “clash of civilizations.” One wonders if Klaas has read Huntington or Toynbee — or Spengler for that matter. Or, even more recently, Robert Kaplan’s “The Tragic Mind.”
Klaas criticizes Trump for praising dictators, but President Woodrow Wilson praised Lenin and President Franklin Roosevelt praised Stalin. Klaas says that Trump is indifferent to democracy and human rights. No, Trump simply refuses to make them the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy, which is a “long-standing” tradition that stretches back long before Wilson to our founding fathers.
However, neither Wilson nor FDR wanted America to right every wrong in the world, as Klaas does. Klaas wants his “human rights” and democracy agenda “backed by weapons.” He laments that authoritarian regimes no longer need to fear the “condemnation” and the “bombs” of the American president.
Klaas’ leftism is revealed when he condemns the United States for helping to replace Mossaddegh with the pro-American shah of Iran, overthrowing the Marxist regime of Patrice Lumumba in Congo, helping to overthrow Allende in Chile, and cozying up to other authoritarian regimes.
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The professor also might want to read Jeane Kirkpatrick’s “Dictatorships and Double Standards” to learn that sometimes doing these things is in America’s national interests. Klaas’ leftism jumps off the page when he refers to the illegal aliens removed by the Trump administration — many with criminal records — as “foreign pilgrims.”
Some of those “foreign pilgrims” raped and killed Americans. But Klaas’ first priority is not America or its citizens; it is using American treasure and blood to promote his chimerical notions of global democracy and universal human rights. He is anti-Trump precisely because Trump’s foreign policy is America First. Let’s hope Klaas’ style of democracy promotion is dead.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.
A sitting member of Congress declaring on foreign soil, in a foreign language, that she has primary allegiance to a foreign country sounds like the plot of a Russian spy thriller. Instead, Americans got a political telenovela when Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) told an audience in Mexico, in Spanish, “I’m a proud Guatemalan before I’m an American.”
The only real surprise is that Ramirez said it out loud — on camera — and without qualification. Given the decline in standards among today’s lawmakers, especially on the Democrat side of the aisle, the sentiment isn’t shocking. The candor is.
Americans deserve to see whether Congress will enforce its own standards. Every member should go on record.
Ramirez’s statement has drawn condemnation from commentators, political leaders, and media outlets. Condemnation isn’t enough. She should be expelled from the House of Representatives. The Oversight Project has even done the work for members. On Thursday, we released the draft text of an expulsion resolution.
Realistically, that won’t happen. The Constitution requires a two-thirds vote to expel a member, and Democrats will protect one of their own, even when that member flagrantly violates her oath of office.
Still, the vote should happen. Americans deserve to see whether Congress will enforce its own standards. Every member should go on record. Let the chips on “foreign interference” fall where they may.
Congress has expelled 21 members in U.S. history — 17 for supporting the Confederacy, three for bribery or fraud, and one senator for siding with the British in West Florida. Almost no precedent exists for expelling a sitting member for declaring loyalty to a foreign country. That’s what makes Ramirez’s admission so remarkable.
The Constitution is built on the premise that lawmakers must have allegiance to the United States — exclusively. The founders addressed the danger of foreign influence in the oath of office, in treason’s definition, and in George Washington’s Farewell Address warning against “entangling alliances” and urging that the “name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity,” must take precedence over all other allegiances.
Expelling Ramirez would reaffirm that basic principle. Her district in Chicago is nearly 30% foreign-born and 42% Latino, according to recent, questionable census data. Many in her district no doubt share her divided loyalties, but that does not excuse it in an elected representative to Congress. Democracy may have put her in office, but the Constitution provides a remedy when loyalty to another nation trumps loyalty to the United States.
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Our draft resolution makes the case succinctly: Ramirez violated the oath she took upon entering office — to support and defend the Constitution and bear “true faith and allegiance to the same.” On May 14, she posted: “I swore an oath to protect the Constitution.” She remembers the oath well enough when it suits her politics.
If Congress cannot enforce that oath in the face of such a blatant breach, then the oath is meaningless.
Over the past few decades, Democrats have turned constitutional principles into political bargaining chips. Quiet subversion has given way to open defiance — nowhere more evident than in the immigration debate. Increasingly, they argue not over policy details, but over whether the United States should have immigration laws at all.
Republicans, for their part, have largely failed to confront this trend. Too often they negotiate away sovereignty in exchange for hollow compromises. That must end.
The line is simple: The United States cannot have a member of Congress whose primary allegiance is to Guatemala — or any other nation. Congress should act accordingly. Ramirez should be expelled.
Although America’s 250th birthday is still one year away, there is a fun, unique, and mathematical fact about this year's 249th birthday that will help illustrate just how young America is as a nation.
To do that, we can start with the age of President Thomas Jefferson on the day he died — significantly enough, on the day America was celebrating its 50th birthday: July 4, 1826. Jefferson was 83.
Just three 83-year-olds living back-to-back-to-back takes you to the year our nation was founded.
As an interesting aside, our third president was not the only commander in chief whose life was historically tied to America's birthday. President John Adams also died within five hours of Jefferson on July 4, 1826. Five years later, on July 4, 1831, our fifth president and founding father James Monroe also passed away.
Not to be too maudlin, one president was actually born on the Fourth of July. In 1872, Calvin Coolidge came into the world and would grow up to become America's 30th president.
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So what does Jefferson’s age of 83 have to do with this year’s national birthday celebration? Well, if you find an 83-year-old person living in America and go all the way back to the year he was born, you would find yourself in 1942. Now, in 1942, find a person who was born 83 years in the past, back to 1859. Finally, find a person born 83 years before that, and you arrive at ... 1776!
Just three 83-year-olds living back-to-back-to-back takes you to the year our nation was founded.
And while we're pondering this age business, it's also fun to look at the relative youth of those who signed the Declaration of Independence, keeping in mind that 56 delegates representing the 13 original colonies actually put their very “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” on the line when they signed their John Hancock on the document (and, yes, one of them was indeed John Hancock).
Also, with present-day controversy in mind, it is worth noting that none of the representatives signed using an auto-quill.
The average age of the document’s signers was 44 years, which happened to be George Washington's age at the time. And Washington's nemesis across the pond, the other George, King George III of England? He was 38.
The oldest signer of the Declaration was (no surprise) Benjamin Franklin, age 70.
Finally, by now you have probably done the math to figure out the age of Thomas Jefferson — the document’s chief author — when he signed: 33.
Now, enjoy the celebrations and get ready for the biggest one of all, next year’s 250th!
Editor's note: A version of this article appeared originally at American Thinker.
As we celebrate Independence Day, it’s worth reflecting on America’s founding character — especially the man who defined it: George Washington.
Washington didn’t build his legacy on grand speeches. He led with silence, sacrifice, and restraint. He may not have written poetry, but he lived it — with grit in war, grace in peace, and great wisdom in his letters, journals, and Farewell Address.
This Fourth of July, as fireworks fill the night sky, let’s also make room for silence — for healing, for grief, for endurance.
He didn’t just fight for a nation — he helped shape its soul. Washington understood that a country isn’t defined only by its victories, but by how it makes meaning out of its wounds.
In our time of division and disillusionment, we would do well to reclaim the legacy Washington embodied. Resilience isn’t the denial of pain but rather transformation through it. And the only vision worth holding on to is the one that unites us in building our future as a nation.
Trauma doesn’t end the story. Often, it begins the most meaningful chapters. That’s true in my life — and in America’s. Growth has never come from comfort. It comes from hardship, from wounds we don’t hide from but confront. Psychologists call it “post-traumatic growth.” It’s the idea that suffering, when faced and integrated, can lead to deeper purpose, stronger relationships, and a more grounded sense of self.
I guess most Americans would just call it “history.”
I led soldiers into Iraq in 2003 and returned to a nation largely untouched by the war I had lived. But my reckoning came later — when a brief Wall Street career collapsed, when a home invasion shattered my sense of safety, and when therapy forced me to face what I had tried for years to outrun: trauma, guilt, grief.
What followed wasn’t just recovery. It was transformation — a quiet strength rooted in humility and meaning. Post-traumatic growth teaches that suffering, when faced honestly, can lead to deeper purpose, stronger relationships, and a more grounded self.
That truth doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to us all.
From Valley Forge to Gettysburg, from the Great Depression to Ground Zero, America has been forged in fire. Our greatest progress has rarely come in peacetime. Lincoln didn’t rise when things were easy. The Greatest Generation wasn’t shaped in comfort. Renewal always follows rupture.
We’re in such a moment again. Pressure is building — on our national identity, our personal stories, our sense of unity. But pressure can forge something stronger, if we let it.
We must reject the lie that trauma equals weakness. PTSD is real — often invisible, often devastating. But it’s not the end of the story. Alongside post-traumatic stress, we can teach post-traumatic strength. The kind Washington lived. The kind America has always needed.
That’s part of why I wrote “Downriver: Memoir of a Warrior Poet.” Yes, it tells a story of trauma — from childhood instability to the battlefields of Iraq, from Wall Street collapse to personal unraveling. But more importantly, it traces the long road of healing — not as a tidy comeback story, but as a messy, hard-earned path toward growth and integration.
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The journey is not reserved for veterans alone. It belongs to survivors of addiction, loss, illness, injustice, and personal collapse. It belongs to first responders, caregivers, and ordinary Americans living through extraordinary hardship.
But growth isn’t guaranteed. It requires honesty. It requires community. It demands a culture willing to honor both the warrior and the poet — the one who endures and the one who reflects, the one who fights and the one who heals.
Too often, we swing between denial and despair. But what if we told a different story? What if we treated our national wounds not as signs of weakness but as calls to deepen our roots?
We’ve done it before. The post-9/11 generation gave us new models of service and empathy. The scars of the COVID-19 pandemic will never fully heal, but they can teach us lessons about connection, community, and what really matters.
The question isn’t whether we’ve been wounded. We have. The real question is what kind of country we’ll become in response. Will we let trauma divide us further — or use it to rediscover what binds us together?
This Fourth of July, as fireworks fill the night sky, let’s also make room for silence — for healing, for grief, for endurance. Let’s honor not only what we’ve won but how we’ve grown.
That’s the path of the warrior poet. That’s Washington’s legacy. And it can be ours, too.
John Adams believed America’s independence should be marked with “pomp, shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations.” He got his wish. Within a year of the Declaration’s signing on July 4, 1776, celebrations had become a colonies-wide tradition.
The reaction across the Atlantic, however, struck a very different tone.
This wasn’t just about taxes or trade policy. It was about the belief that free men could govern themselves.
The British response was not stunned disbelief or deep introspection. It was mockery — and, ultimately, a grave miscalculation.
The war didn’t begin with the Declaration. A year earlier, in August 1775, King George III had already issued a Proclamation of Rebellion. The crown had stopped viewing the dispute as a matter of political redress. It now saw open revolt.
But the Declaration shifted the terms. What landed in London by mid-August 1776 wasn’t a petition or compromise. It was a bold, philosophical argument for national divorce. In British eyes, it was treason.
British newspapers published the Declaration widely. The London Chronicle printed it, along with other major papers. But few took it seriously. To them, it was just another provocation from unruly colonials.
The elite mocked Thomas Jefferson’s talk of “unalienable rights.” Gen. William Howe, sent to crush the rebellion, called the Declaration “extravagant and inadmissible.” The British state responded accordingly.
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Within weeks, more than 32,000 British troops — including 8,000 German mercenaries — sailed into New York Harbor. It was the largest overseas force Britain had ever fielded. Howe aimed to stamp out the uprising before year’s end.
The campaign nearly succeeded.
George Washington’s army suffered defeat after defeat, narrowly escaping destruction on Long Island. By autumn, the American position looked hopeless.
But while Britain saw a dying rebellion, France saw a chance to strike.
Even before 1776, French agents had begun quietly arming the colonists. The Declaration gave them a pretext to go farther. Though Louis XVI had no love for democracy, he did have a long memory — and Britain’s victory in the Seven Years’ War had come at France’s expense.
With the Declaration in hand, France could cloak strategic revenge in the language of liberty.
Formal recognition wouldn’t come until 1778, but the shift had begun. French arms, cash, and eventually troops transformed the conflict. What began as a colonial revolt became an international war.
Back in London, the American cause began to attract sympathy in Parliament.
In 1777, future British Prime Minister William Pitt took to the House of Lords to warn his colleagues: “You cannot conquer" America.
He was right.
What Britain failed to grasp was that America hadn’t simply declared independence. It had declared a new theory of government: one grounded in consent, not inheritance.
The crown mistook revolutionary conviction for rhetorical flourish. Britain's government believed the colonists would fold in the face of overwhelming force. But this wasn’t just about taxes or trade policy. It was about the belief that free men could govern themselves.
Ideas like that can stand up to empires — even the most powerful in the world.
Dearborn Heights, Michigan, Mayor Bill Bazzi announced Friday that the new Arabic police patch was not “official” — but didn’t rule out adopting such a badge of surrender in the future. A Facebook post from the police department posted earlier this week read: “The Dearborn Heights Police Department [DHPD] is proud to share a new […]
A historical monument in Fredericksburg, Virginia, commemorating George Washington’s mother was vandalized this past weekend with what appear to be Antifa writings. The revelation came to light on Monday, when the Washington Heritage Museum disclosed in a Facebook post that the Mary Washington Monument was graffitied on two sides. Pictures released by the organization show […]
As we’ve learned, Democrats in power have grown quite fond of the soft coup, while warning of 'threats to democracy.'
If Americans are taught by foreigners (and their children) to hate the men and ideals that birthed liberty, they will never fight to protect it when the next settler immigrant tries to take it away.
If we ignore the invasion that has occurred, we're not honoring the founders — we're betraying them.
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