Jeremy L. Berg

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

George Packer offers a warning in a recent piece in The Atlantic:

American culture is as distinct as that of any other nation, but it’s the only one that comes from an idea. That idea is the equality of all human beings; their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the form of self- government that secures their rights, including the right to change their government if it becomes tyrannical. This idea produced a mass culture famous for loud voices, informal address, innocence and ignorance, generosity and violence, bluntness and cluelessness—a culture of individualists who refuse to accept that anyone is their better, any station fixed for life, any possibility closed to them. It is the easiest culture in the world to join, and if the first generation can’t then the second will. It absorbs, changes, and is changed by each new one, blatant and accessible enough to provide a lingua franca in which they can all understand and be understood. It has no elaborate rules or ancient secret codes. It flattens and simplifies other cultures into music, clothing, food, and words whose vulgarity appalls and seduces the rest of the world. It is stronger than any religious orthodoxy or class rank. What Americans have in common is a way of life made by their creed.

If you still believe this creed matters—if the idea and the culture and institutions that it created still keep you attached to this country—you’re holding on in a hard wind. Around the globe, autocracy is on the march and democracy’s reputation is in decline as its leading light extinguishes itself. In America, most of your fellow citizens in both parties think democracy has stopped working on their behalf. You have to make the case that all the promised shortcuts to greatness are roads to hell—that there is no path toward a more decent life except through the common effort of free and equal citizens. And you have to keep believing it in the face of their utter folly. The only way to be a patriot is to work together with those fools, your fellow Americans, to stop this growing tyranny so that we have a chance to redeem ourselves.”

From The Atlantic, print edition, November 2025, p. 146.