Commentary: America Must Reclaim What the Left Has Attempted to Destroy

by Kevin Roberts

History remembers Independence Hall for the grave, soul-stirring words written there:

“All men are created equal …”

“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness …”

“We the people …”

But it is a pithier, sharper sentence spoken there that distills the challenge before America today. You’ve probably heard the story.

At the end of the Constitutional Convention, as delegates emerged from their secret deliberations, a Philadelphia woman—one “Mrs. Powell”—asked Pennsylvania delegate Benjamin Franklin what kind of government the convention had given them.

Franklin answered her: “A republic … if you can keep it.”

Franklin’s challenge feels so bracing still, two centuries later. Today, the nation is increasingly misgoverned, misled, and outright attacked by a ruling elite that does not want us to “keep” our republic.

In fact, they want to take it from us. Look back no further than how our elected and unelected officials acted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This little clique goes by different names. I’m sure you’ve heard them all: the woke, the “globalists,” the “establishment,” the “coastal elite,” the political class, the “Swamp.” My favorite, though, is the “Neiman Marxists.”

They control different industries and institutions, from the media to the government to our schools, universities, and corporate boardrooms.

But for the purposes of winning back our country and “keeping” our republic, they are all the same.

I don’t mean only that they are the same as each other. They are the same as they have ever been.

Today, we think of America’s Revolution, founding, and history as a heroic story about the triumph of the human spirit: the little guy standing up to the bullies, fighting for freedom against oppressors. But as you know, there are always some people who don’t like a David and Goliath story: the Goliaths.

In the 18th century, that was Europe’s aristocracy. They hated the American Revolution and our Constitution because the fundamental idea of our nation is that here, the people rule. We didn’t need elites to tell us what to do.

In the 19th century, when France’s revolutionaries insisted that “freedom” required totalitarian oppression, America proved otherwise.

And when a new generation of privileged, landed elites in our own land declared that all men were not created equal, America rededicated itself to the principles of 1776. We fought, we reunited, and—“with malice toward none and charity for all”—we stood taller together as one.

In the 20th century, when totalitarian ideologues around the world conflated patriotism with hate and equality with tyranny, America rescued most of the world from them.

For two centuries, every generation of global elites looked down on American freedom—and ended up looking up at our success.

Now in the 21st century, the so-called “Great Awokening” is just the latest iteration of the empire striking back. From Washington and Wall Street to Beijing and Brussels, they are coming for our freedom, for our Constitution, for our faith, and, yes, even for our children—all in the name of global order. They want to take from us our birthright as Americans. They say they want us to become “citizens of the world.” But in truth, they want us to be subjects of them.

Today, Americans are rising up; drawing a line in the sand; and telling those who every day expect to impose their will on us, on our families, on our children, that never—never—will they succeed.

Better still, American parents—like all of us at The Heritage Foundation—are tired of playing defense. Like the 56 men who had the spine to sign the Declaration of Independence, they’ve decided to go on offense. I’m here to tell you that at every step of the way, in every fight, in every battle, with every hateful journalist, every attack on the American people—every single one—Heritage and I will stand firm.

As we fight to preserve the American order against this global empire, it’s important to remember what it is that conservatives need to conserve.

One of the best books ever written about America’s unique culture of freedom is called “The Roots of American Order” by Russell Kirk. You may have also come across his most famous book, “The Conservative Mind,” which traces the history of conservative thought.

In “The Roots of American Order,” Kirk traces the ideas that make up the American way of life—and in particular, the four great traditions that led our forefathers to found our republic 236 years ago this month.

America did not invent the idea of “ordered liberty.” We inherited it from the West’s four great cities of freedom that came before us: Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, and London.

The first is obvious. All the moral principles on which America was founded—and on which our society has flourished—date back to the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, and the ancient Kingdom of Israel. When our Founders, in the Declaration of Independence, invoked the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” they weren’t talking about Zeus or Thor. They were talking about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

From the Jewish people, the West inherited our greatest gift, the one on which all others rest: the knowledge of our good and loving God. “All men are created equal” was not a philosophical theory springing from the Enlightenment, but a revealed moral truth. Men are not equal in virtue or wisdom, talent or strength. The equality of the American Founding is our moral equality—as fallen creatures before a just Creator, who, in his infinite mercy, loves us nonetheless—and taught us how to live according to His will.

Human equality. God-given rights. These, America owes to the God of Abraham; the holy, heroic people of Israel; and the city of Jerusalem.

America’s second inheritance, democracy, comes from Athens. In Abraham Lincoln’s words: “Government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Twenty-five hundred years ago in Athens, every citizen had a voice. Leaders were chosen and entrusted with power, not born with or entitled to it. They served temporarily and subject to the will of the people. The people decided when to go to war, whether to levy taxes, and what public works to build. They were, in a way no people had been before, free.

And from that freedom, the Greeks flourished. Classical Athens is as famous today for its ingenious philosophers, mathematicians, science, poetry, architecture, and art as much as for its political innovations.

Practically the only problem the Greek city-states couldn’t solve was, as Kirk put it, “how to live with each other in peace and justice.” They disputed. They fought. They bled each other white in costly conflicts because cooler heads could not be heard above the din of the crowd. In the end, the tragic lesson of Athenian democracy was that without order, liberty is doomed.

Weakened by war, Greece, once the flower of civilization, soon fell to America’s third great cultural ancestor: Rome.

What fueled Rome’s rise from a tiny trading village to an empire spanning three continents? Well, one of the first sources of their success was what they learned from the Greeks. They built on Athenian innovations in science, engineering, military strategy … and also politics.

The Romans would not repeat Athens’ mistakes. Instead of a pure democracy, they established a republic. They divided power between consuls, community representatives, and the Senate. Each checked the power of the other two—harnessing ambitious Romans’ talents for the good of the whole.

In time, this system was so successful and generated so much wealth and power that Roman culture turned decadent and the government unresponsive to the people. The Senate gave way to Caesar, and the republic gave way to the empire. (Sounds a lot like Washington, now that I mention it.)

But the story didn’t end there. Just as Rome learned from Athens, she learned something else from Jerusalem.

Christianity, thank God, transcends politics. On the other hand, we have it on very good authority that Christians are “salt of the earth.” Their devotion always changes cultures—converts them, you might say. Christian devotion makes societies more just, more compassionate, and more charitable and dutiful. Yet for all these virtues’ collective value, the revolutionary truth at the heart of the Gospel is the innate, infinite value of each soul.

Thanks to a particular Roman crucifixion in first-century Jerusalem, human beings today are not only made in the image and likeness of God, but can be redeemed by Him. As C.S. Lewis said, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”

The revelations of the New Testament empowered mankind to pursue the “good, the beautiful, and the true” as never before. And the lives of the apostles, saints, and martyrs…