The name of the country is America, not Utopia. And the appropriate comparison isn’t to the Eden you might imagine, it’s to every other place on Earth. We can’t be more perfect than what’s in your mind. We can only be more perfect than Belgium.
Bill Maher (opening monologue)
Perhaps you tuned into HBO on June 26th to see Bill Maher interview J.D Vance. The opening monologue (see above) got me thinking about the general discontent in America on our nation’s 250th birthday. By almost two to one, Americans think the country is on the wrong track (source: Civiqs) and fewer than one in five say they trust Washington to “do the right thing” (source: Axios). Oddly, today’s national mood is much worse than it was in 1976, on America’s 200th birthday.
Barely two years after the Vietnam War and Nixon’s presidency had ended in disgrace – and in spite of 7.7% unemployment and 6% inflation – optimistic Americans outnumbered the pessimists by three to one (source: Roper) and 75% of Americans said their country had achieved most of its founding ideals (source Gallup). In 1976, I finished college and began post-graduate studies in economics, so I was steeped in our nation’s misery index…
…but not marinated in self-serving influencers like Al Gore, Al Sharpton or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who’ve ignored a half-century of advancement and awfulized America’s progress on climate, race, and gender. Their rhetoric has, in no small part, invited “it’s just awful” feelings amongst one out of every two Democrats; i.e. the climate-first voters, African-Americans, and young women.
Thanks to climate-crisis awfulizers like Gore, 39% of Americans believe there is a 50% or higher chance that global warming will cause human extinction (source: MacArthur Foundation). That doom permeates climate-first voters; 89% believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, 84% feel the US government has failed to “work for their future,” and only 15% are “extremely proud” of America (sources: AP/NORC, Pew Research and YPCCC).
That negativity should be aimed at Al Gore, who lost the 2000 election and then sold an “existential climate crisis” on his way to a $300 million fortune (source: financhill.com). In 2016, he predicted “no more snow on Mt. Kilimanjaro in ten years.” Oops, it’s 2026 and Mother Nature has already dumped 340 inches of snow on the African peak (source: USGS).
Back to 1976, when climate change barely registered as an issue with Americans. 90% of our vehicles ran on leaded gasoline, so neurotoxin lead filled our air. Toxic industrial sludge was dumped directly into our rivers, so we’d recently seen Cleveland’s Cuyahoga catch fire. Today, lead has disappeared from our air, and 90% of toxic waste water never leaves the industrial facility (source: EPA).
That’s progress and why 71% of America’s blue-collar workers, who live up close and personal with EPA policies every day, are OK with today’s climate-and-energy policies (source: Pew Research).
Thanks to racial awfulizers like Al Sharpton, 81% of black voters feel America is generally headed in the wrong direction, and 78% believe the government doesn’t serve the interest of “ordinary people of color” (sources: AP/NORC and Pew Research). No wonder only 29% of blacks feel “extremely proud” to be an American (source: Gallup). Sharpton talks a lot about the lack of “racial parity” and very little about the multi-generational advancement cited below.
Since 1976, African-American life expectancy has increased from 67.2 years to 74, and median black household incomes have increased from $9,240 per year to $56,020. Blacks have quadrupled their share of managerial jobs. Black business ownership has risen from 231,000 to 4,600,000. Blacks elected to state or federal office have grown from 200 to 870. The percentage of Blacks with some college has grown from 13.4% to 49.7%. Black unemployment has dropped from 13.2% to 6.6%.
That data is why 60% of black Republicans believe America is fundamentally sound, fair, and colorblind, and express significantly higher faith and pride in the country than Black Democrats (source: Pew Research). Two racial truths you’ll never hear from Democrats. One, black Americans live 9.8 years longer than Africans, while white Americans live 4.7 fewer years than Europeans. Two, black Americans earn $54,000 more per year than Africans, while white Americans earn only $15,000 more than Europeans.
Thanks to preachy women like AOC, two-thirds of American women still rue the reversal of Roe v. Wade. Which has left 71% of women voters saying their government “doesn’t understand” their needs (source: Pew Research) and only 36% saying they are “extremely proud” to be an American (source: Gallup). Republican mothers alone overwhelmingly report being “proud of America” (source: WSJ/NORC), a testament to their clear vision…
…that see women comprising 55% of U.S. law and medical school enrollments, and holding over 55% of the executive jobs in education, finance, medicine and public relations. They see 60 years of improvements in birth control. To wit, 60% of unwanted pregnancies now end privately and safely at home, thanks to the FDA approving abortion pills (Mifepristone and Misoprostol) in 2000 and legalizing mail-delivery prescriptions in 2021. Almost all of America’s colleges and universities provide free condoms to students.
Dating back to 1966, when there were 1.2 million “legal and illegal” abortions, the US has averaged just over a million abortions per year (source: Guttmacher Institute). That average includes 1,200,000 “legal” abortions four years after Roe (1976) and 1,126,000 three years after Dobbs (2025). Every year since 1976, 10-12 million American women aged 15-49 have been on birth control pills, far more than a record-setting 1.6 million surgical abortions in 1990 (source: CDC). So…dry your eyes, AOC.
Since 1976, I’ve watched violent crime rates fall to fifty-year lows, support for same-sex marriage become the norm, and death rates from cancer and heart disease drop by 35% and 60%, respectively. The body of data-based evidence – across all measurements of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – proves the USA is in pretty dad-gummed good shape!
That opinion was corroborated Saturday on CNN by Michael Smerconish, who said “more than a million international visitors” in America’s World Cup host communities are “sending the word back home – America is nothing like the media told them.” He goes on to explain the disconnect between clear-eyed foreigners and America’s legacy media:
“The polls, they measure Washington. The visitors are measuring us, and the gap between those two things might be the most American story there is.”
Folks, that’s a CNN host admitting America is “nothing like” his network (and others) portrays, and urging us to pay less attention to polls and politicians. No joke, because America is not what Democrats say when they are out of (or seeking) power. Requiring a photo ID to vote is not “Jim Crow 2.0” and the planet is not going to spontaneously combust without the Green New Deal.
Which is to say…tune out the so-called liberals and be of good cheer this July 4th weekend.
Happy Birthday, America!