Conservatives will not win every election, but we can still work to better this country by encouraging civic-mindedness and unity among our fellow citizens.
The 2024 National Review Institute William F. Buckley Jr. Essay Contest had this prompt: “William F. Buckley Jr. was proudly patriotic. He loved his country and believed the U.S. Constitution to be the best governing document created by man. According to a June 2023 Gallup survey, only 39 percent of U.S. adults are ‘extremely proud’ to be American. What do you think is causing patriotism to decline? What antidote would you prescribe? Can one both celebrate America and its history and recognize its flaws?” Open to students who just completed their freshman or sophomore year of college, the contest received submissions from around the country. The winning essay is published here.
A year before William F. Buckley Jr. ended the run of Firing Line, a 1998 Wall Street Journal poll found that three-quarters of Americans described patriotism as a value that was “very important” to them. Religion and having children were also ranked as very important by nearly two-thirds of Americans. Out of the ten values presented, money placed dead last.
In a 2023 follow-up, the Wall Street Journal encountered a vastly different America. Community and having children were labeled “very important” values by about a quarter of Americans, with a third describing patriotism and religion that way. Money as a personal value catapulted into first place.
The collapse in patriotism is a direct result of the decline in the other values that hold people together: faith, family, and community. And that alarming lack of connection between Americans and their fellow citizens is a leading reason behind the divided state of our union. If one cannot feel a personal connection with one’s neighbor, how can one feel a connection with one’s country?
The country where Bill Buckley, with his famed politeness, could foster reasoned debate over passionate disagreements no longer exists. As conservatives, our most fundamental calling is to conserve our inheritance. Progressives may be embarrassed by our heritage, discarding the time-tested as “old-fashioned.” We are the ones who believe, as Isaac Newton wrote, that we can see further only by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Conservatives are compelled to ask, Can we recover American unity?
When Alexis de Tocqueville examined the state of our union in 1831, he noted that “if men are to remain civilized, or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased.” While America has advanced equality of conditions in admirable ways, research shows that the art of association is in marked decline. What Russell Kirk described as the “fantastic ideology of extreme individualism” has weakened our ability to build bridges between groups in a diverse citizenry. Placelessness undermines organic and authentic community. The church, once the center of local community and what Martin Luther King Jr. identified as the “conscience of the state,” has been replaced with religious disillusionment. Social media and the availability of endless entertainment provide an enticing yet dangerous escape for young people.
This disconnect and disillusionment leave the average American confused and unfulfilled. Americans need each other the same way they did in Tocqueville’s time; they simply have fewer opportunities to fulfill that need. Bolstering faith and community life — an endeavor to encourage ethical living and serviced-based citizenship — would undoubtedly make Americans more patriotic. Deep and meaningful connection to others fills a natural human void; conservatives ought to provide a time-tested method to fill the void that has increasingly become artificially assuaged by partisan politics. In fact, depoliticizing our country will not only lead to better communities but to better politics. When politics is relegated to its proper place as an avenue to strengthen families and communities, not as an end in itself, our politics will become a healthier affair, and American citizens will become prouder of their nation.
Americans, particularly those on social media, have a knack for seeing the worst in everything. We are a critical bunch, resentful instead of respectful, proud instead of prudent. While this tendency is visible in our politics and in ‘cancel culture,’ nowhere is it more apparent than in our jarring irreverence for the past. Our chronological snobbery is so boundless that, forget statues and road names, even innocuous phrases like “Boy Scout” must be scrubbed from our cultural lexicon.
This way of thinking is unhealthy for the soul of our nation. All are free to voice criticisms, but every critique should come with the awareness of the incredible gift it is to be born in this time and place. Despite our flaws, America is still the home of justice, prosperity, and opportunity. Once we begin to cultivate gratitude among our citizenry, people will begin to want to channel it. That same gratitude is the heart of love, the love of God, neighbor, and country. Gratitude is a prerequisite for patriotism.
Public art is an essential element in bringing about a love of country. Progressives have seen tremendous success in destroying or defaming our nation’s treasures and severing our connection to the past. Conservatives must be indefatigable in preserving a spirit of appreciation for the sacrifices of our nation’s heroes. There is no shortage of brave Americans, famous or ordinary, who are deserving of our gratitude. Worthy ideas such as a national garden to honor heroes could also find success at the state and local level. These efforts should be historically informed and not idolatrous; we do not worship the past, only honor it. Conservatives will take heat for honoring American heroes, but their patriotic stand for greatness should be unapologetic.
A call for civic education in universities throughout the country gives hope for the inculcation of responsible citizenship in young Americans. Bill Buckley understood that we could not depend on colleges and universities alone to create citizens ready to defend our inheritance; organizations within the university would be needed as well. YouTube shorts and Instagram reels may bring fleeting pleasures, but they are a symptom of a broader lack of meaning. Conservatives ought to commit to institutions and organizations, from Trail Life USA to the American Legion, that instill the importance of duty to God and country. Giving young people a deeper sense of meaning is a step toward raising a new generation of patriots.
The American people, to fully love their country and engage in the public square as good citizens, must have an open and responsive political system. If people do not feel listened to in a democracy, they will stop listening. In this publication and others, there have been commonsense and pragmatic cases for filibuster reform and age limits for federal officeholders, designed to make the democratic system more responsive to the will of the people. The biggest element of restoring trust in the political system is the return of civility. With partisanship being the most defined dividing line in the country, and many partisans viewing their opponents as evil, both political parties must reject violent language. Nearly every American is worried that this election cycle will be marked by more bloodshed than we have already seen. Such a republic is not one in which citizens can take pride.
America is in desperate need of improved public discourse. Alcuin defined speech to a young Pippin as “the interpreter of the soul.” The conservative’s calling is to extend the olive branch with generosity to citizens across the political spectrum. We must admit that the Right is often too quick to dismiss opposing arguments as “woke” or “radical Left.” Buckley’s elegance and his passion for ensuring that the conservative movement could proceed independent of racial or ethnic bias are an inspirational model for a conservative movement that seeks to unite and uplift.
Bill Buckley’s and Ronald Reagan’s personal friendships with political opponents should also serve as a model for the American people. To dismiss and exclude others based on political beliefs, or on their intention to vote for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, is arrogant and antithetical to the defining characteristic of patriotism: the belief that our commitment to our fellow countrymen must transcend partisan differences.
Patriotism need not render us blind to the faults of our past and present. As Frederick Douglass said, “the best friend of a nation is he who most faithfully rebukes her for her sins — and he her worst enemy who, under the specious . . . garb of patriotism seeks to excuse, palliate and defend them.” Conservatives rightly embrace Chesterton’s “democracy of the dead,” but there are times when the inherited wisdom of previous generations is wrong. For generations in this country, minority families worked hard only to have racism impede their fulfillment of the American dream. The nation has disavowed the moral sins of slavery and institutional discrimination, but any lingering effects of those sins must be combatted.
We must recognize where we have failed to achieve the ideal of universal human dignity and equal opportunity and continue working toward those objectives. Conservatives heed the advice of Winston Churchill, who famously said, “If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.” The true conservative acknowledges the fallibility and sinful nature of every human. If we are committed to the goal of individual flourishing and a united people, we must look to the hand of our communities, not the hand of government.
On the national level, we can find unity by rallying together behind our constitutional order. Conservatives will not win every election, but we can still work to better this country and to encourage civic-mindedness, so that the men and women of America can feel united under one flag and under God.
The attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump, and the killing of an American citizen exercising his rights by attending a political rally, took place less than half an hour away from where I attend college. In the aftermath of that attack, this much is clear: The track we are currently on is unsustainable. Political division presents real dangers. The task for conservatives is to fight to preserve the American spirit of resilience, selflessness, and patriotism.
On September 24, at 3 p.m. EDT, National Review Institute invites supporters and NR subscribers to attend a virtual forum featuring the author of this essay and Buckley Fellow Haley Strack, followed by a Q&A. For more information, please contact Events@nrinstitute.org.