Battling for the Hearts and Minds of the American People

By Alan W. Dowd, ASCF Senior Fellow

July 2022

After decades of teaching generations of kids that America is no different than, no better than and perhaps worse than other countries, America is reaping the whirlwind. Polling tells us that Americans born since 1981 (the Millennials and Generation Z) are decidedly less proud of America than older generational cohorts, less likely to embrace the concept of American exceptionalism than their parents and grandparents, and more likely than older generations to view the American flag as a symbol of “imperialism,” “greed” and/or “intolerance,” rather than a symbol of “freedom.”

This trend is deeply worrisome as these generations begin to take the reins of leadership and as the nation wades into Cold War II—a multifaceted global struggle that, like Cold War I, will demand the support, sacrifice, unity, endurance and tenacity of the American people. If America’s leaders don’t believe in America—if the American people don’t know enough history to recognize that America is imperfect but good—Cold War II will not end as favorably for America or for freedom as Cold War I.

Truth
Indeed, the hearts and minds of the American people are the key to winning such a struggle. And so, we start our discussion not on faraway frontlines, but here at home.

Recent years have seen mobs—literal mobs as well as organizations possessed of a mob mentality—corrode key symbols and institutions of America. The list is long, but it includes assaults on the American Flag and the National Anthem; the removal of the names of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and other American leaders from public schools; the toppling of U.S. Grant’s statue and the defacing of war memorials; attacks on members of Congress and members of the Supreme Court.

“The law itself—the principle of law, the authority of law—is sorely tested and feels as if it is being broken,” as Lance Morrow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center writes.

The reason: We live in a culture expunged of overarching truths and awash in postmodern relativism—a culture characterized by truth in quotation marks. In the classroom (oblivious to the irony), schools are teaching young minds that there is no absolute truth except one—the absolute which declares there are no absolutes. In our civic life, as historian John Lewis Gaddis suggests, our eagerness “to question all values” has undermined “our faith in and our determination to defend certain values.”

This contempt for truth is highly corrosive, especially for a nation founded on “self-evident” “truths.” The objective, absolute truths Americans once agreed upon have been replaced by subjective, individual versions of truth that are not only different for each person, but by definition cannot all be true.

Moreover, even those of us who accept that there’s such a thing as objective truth increasingly disagree on where to find it. The common ground that once represented truth to the American people—things like the Ten Commandments, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the morning paper and evening news—have been supplanted by a popular culture that declares the only wrong behavior is judging something to be wrong, selfie narcissism and echo-chamber social media.

Our enemies know this and are exploiting this to great effect (see here, here, here, here). And that’s how this corrosion of truth impacts the security of the United States: If we cannot agree on what is true and where to find the truth—even on whether there’s such a thing as truth—how can we develop, build support for, and carry out policies that defend our nation and deter our enemies? How can the generations behind us learn that America is something worth believing in and fighting for? How can we build a more perfect union?

Truths
The post-truth, post-modern mobs that sit on school boards and muzzle free speech on college campuses and occupy city streets and maraud public spaces do not seek to build a more perfect union. They seek only to destroy and tear down—subscribing to the unattainable purity of Robespierre or, equally apt, the Taliban.

Before balking at such comparisons, consider the toppling of Grant’s statue. Do the mobs know that Grant liberated hundreds of thousands from slavery and vanquished a racialist regime? Do they know that during surrender parleys, when Confederate commanders proposed terms that included the right of Confederate troops to retain their “property,” Grant—recognizing that was code for enslaved human beings—rejected such terms?

Do the mobs know that Lincoln literally gave up his life for the cause of liberty and equality? Do the mobs know that Martin Luther King called Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence “a great dream”?

Do the mobs know what those war memorials represent? In 1917-18, 116,000 Americans died defending democracy from authoritarian regimes. In 1941-45, 405,399 Americans—black and white, red, yellow and brown—died liberating Europe and Asia from racialist-eugenicist empires. From 1948 to 1991, America sacrificed 100,000 lives to protect the frontiers of freedom from Soviet totalitarianism—the freedom to speak or remain silent, to peacefully assemble, to worship any god or no god at all. Doubtless, the mobs will retort that America is no better than the Soviet Union or other tyrannies. But then they must explain why Moscow had to build walls to keep people in, why Moscow’s former subjects have chosen to become America’s allies, why countless millions flee other lands to come to America, why people in Hong Kong, Poland, Georgia, Libya, Kosovo, Taiwan, Colombia, Kurdistan, Tanzania wave America’s flag and sing America’s national anthem.

Do the mobs know that Americans have saved Liberians from Ebola, Yazidis from ISIS, Somalis from famine; that Americans guarded Serbian Christian kids and Albanian Muslim kids on the way to school; that Americans rescued countless Africans from AIDS and malaria, Indonesians from tsunamis, Haitians from anarchy; that Americans built a bridge back to civilization for Afghans and Iraqis?

Do the mobs know that at this hour Americans are protecting Kuwaitis, Kurds, Kosovars and Koreans from violent neighbors; that Americans are defending the Baltics and Balkans; that America has poured more into global pandemic relief than any other country (12 times more China); that American industry and ingenuity have saved millions of lives from Covid-19?

Do the mobs know that America is a place where a refugee from Czechoslovakia could grow up to one day be entrusted to oversee foreign policy as secretary of state; where an Afghan immigrant could represent his adoptive country’s interests at the UN; where a Cuban or Taiwanese immigrant could serve in the president’s cabinet; where a child could escape the Nazis and the Red Army, and rise to command the armed forces of his adopted home; where a kid born into Soviet scarcity could grow up to build a doorway to the Internet’s limitless possibilities (Google); where the son of a Turkish diplomat (Coca-Cola) or a Syrian refugee (Apple) or a Cuban immigrant (Amazon) could lead or launch the world’s most ubiquitous companies?

Do the mobs understand that these things could happen only in America?

The answer to all those questions is “No.” The mobs don’t know these truths. The emerging generations that largely fill the ranks of the mobs don’t know these things because they haven’t been taught these things. That should serve as an impetus for Baby Boomers and Generation Xers to get to work teaching, preparing and equipping emerging generations to lead. We will discuss what that might entail in the next issue.