Oh sure, Joe. We’ve all wanted to believe that. I wanted to believe that. Most of us grew up on it — the idea that America is the good guy, the fair dealer, the land where we pull together when it counts. We called ourselves a melting pot, a democracy, a place where anyone could make it.
But look closer. Look at the wreckage we’ve left, the governments we’ve toppled, the dictators we’ve funded when it suited us. Look at the neighborhoods carved up by red lines, the ballot boxes blocked, the cages at the border. That wasn’t some shadow version of America — that was America.
So when Joe says, “That’s not who we are,” I can’t help but ask: what book is he reading from?
Because the truth is, this is who we are. It’s not just the foreign policy deals made behind closed doors; it’s right here, every day. It’s how we vote — or don’t. How we scream online, then scroll away. How we see the headlines, feel the punch, and still go back to our coffee.
The gap between who we think we are and who we’ve been? That’s the part that’s breaking us. And maybe we should stop pretending we’re better than our own reflection.