This piece was originally published on The Integralist, a publication that offers a distinctly Catholic political vision to “remind our age of what it has forgotten.” Luca Adamo, The Integralist’s editor in chief, is a third-year undergraduate student studying classical civilizations. He is interested in classical civilizations, theology, political philosophy, and history.
Given that Trump is set to be inaugurated in a couple of days, I figure it a good time to write an article answering a simple question: when was America great?
This question, in many ways, is even more important than the man who coined it. “Make America Great Again” has become the rallying cry of an entire civilization who feel like they have lost something.
Yet, when prompted to define exactly what they have lost, few can give a concrete answer. Liberals like to make a big stink over the fact that conservatives are unable to answer the most obvious follow up question to their entire political justification – and rightly so. The libs are reasonable in expecting an answer.
So, what is the answer? What has America lost? What is the past that America seems to be chasing? When was America great? I’ll tell you when America was great. I’ll tell you exactly when, to the day. America was great on January 31, 1993.
Less than two weeks before that date, on January 20, 1993, Bill Clinton was sworn in as the first Baby Boomer President. A generation who had grown up in the shadows of the Cold War found themselves in a new world at the top of the mountain, with no enemies standing in between them and the sky.
Hippies in suits now found themselves at the helm of the global empire, and everything seemed to be pointing towards the age of justice and endless prosperity they envisioned. Americana – cultural, political, economic, and technological – was the new law of the globe. The United States was at the height of her glory, and she knew it.
That brings us to January 31st, 1993. It was Super Bowl Sunday. The entire country was tuned in to watch the Bills face off against the Cowboys. The national anthem was sung by Garth Brooks, and the coin toss was done by O.J. Simpson. McDonald’s aired a commercial featuring Michael Jordan and Larry Bird, and Gillette aired two “The Best a Man Can Get” ads. To be alive must have been electric. America was unstoppable.
After the end of the second quarter, it was time for the 1993 halftime show, performed by none other than the greatest cultural icon of the entire 20th century: Michael Jackson. His performance is among the most underrated and understudied events in American history.
The show’s first half was pretty much your standard MJ concert. I could make a big point about how his on-stage entrance, in which him standing still triggered two minutes of unbroken hysterics from the crowd, showed how American celebrity culture sucks and is idolatrous, but that’s treaded ground. Michael Jackson’s megacelebrity was merely the instrument by which the performance’s second half – when things really get started – was able to go through.
After Michael wrapped up “Black Or White”, the real show began. As soon as the crowd simmers down, James Earl Jones’s booming voice came on over the speaker, declaring that the next segment would serve as a “gift to the children of the world”. After the announcement, Michael pointed a magic wand at the bleachers, causing a chorus of children to burst into song, and triggering every person in the stadium to hold up a colorful placard which, when taken together, form an enormous panorama depicting the world’s children.
Usually, Halftime Show theatrics are limited to pyrotechnics, or bungee cords, or intricate costumes, or some other mere technical marvel. But this one was different. This Halftime Show was powerful because it spoke to higher ideals – ideals which Michael summarizes eloquently as Heal the World begins to play over the loudspeaker:
Today, we stand together all around the world, joined in a common purpose, to remake the planet into a haven of joy, and understanding, and goodness. No one should have to suffer, especially our children. This time, we must succeed. This is for the children of the world.
After I heard these words, I remember pausing the video in disbelief. Up until that point, I was enjoying the performance like anybody would. But this stopped me in my tracks. What did he just say? I rewinded; what is “remake the world into a haven of joy” supposed to mean? I rewinded again; if we “must succeed” “this time”, when was “last time?”
I was floored. The hubris of that statement made my head spin. Who does he think he is, and who does the crowd think they are for cheering at such a display of utopian pride? What kind of a country would give a mandate to such insanity?
Then, it clicked: the same country who had grown up in the shadow of the Cold War, and now found themselves in a new world at the top of the mountain, with no enemies standing in between them and the sky. In that moment, it made perfect sense: Michael Jackson felt comfortable talking like God because, as far as geopolitics was concerned, America was not merely a nation among nations: America was God.
Jackson’s finale only serves to prove this feeling further. As Heal the World began to play, hundreds of children, dressed in various ethnic garb (ranging from China to Africa to Denmark), all flooded the stage, swaying to the song’s sentimental chorus. At the song’s climax, a giant globe balloons up on the stage, transforming the stadium (and so representing America) into a sort of cosmopolitan Mecca. You could not symbolize American hegemony more nakedly if you tried.
People often say that the American multicultural spirit was born out of a simple self-hatred, derived from such-and-such subversive elements infiltrating such-and-such institutions and pushing such-and-such “anti-American agenda” — somebody grabbing the wheel and crashing the car, so to speak. I do not believe that is how it went. I do not believe that is how anything works.
On the contrary, I believe that the “victim mentality” is a natural result of America’s thinking of herself as God. The childish hippie spirit of the 1960s and its mature humanitarian counterpart of the 1990s both found their strides at the heights of American hubris. Whereas pre-Christian empires (such as Athens) sought, like a pagan god, to conquer the world and “leave imperishable monuments” to their glory behind them (Thucyd. 2.41); Golden Age America sought, like the Christian God, to reflect her greatness in a sacrifice of her own identity, killing herself in order to heal the world.
Of course, America is not God, and so is not invincible to conquer death. The great American suicide, in conflating the City of Man with the City of God, was disastrous. The myth was already showing cracks throughout the 1990s; the LA Riots and the trials of OJ Simpson and Michael Jackson seemed to destroy any kumbaya-notions of American fraternity, and the perfection of American national saints, respectively. The postnational ideal led to a countercultural spirit, where any semblance of American distinctness was ruthlessly scrutinized and picked apart in the name of a broader sense of justice.
I think everybody would agree that 9/11 was a watershed moment. In the great American suicide, 9/11 represented the utter destruction of any sense of American invincibility; that, in large part, was why the tragedy was so traumatizing. America desperately tried to reassert that invincibility by attempting to “heal the world” by curing it of “terrorism”, but to no avail. America hubris came crashing down, and so she grew deeply ashamed.
It is no surprise that after 9/11, there was a massive push for “World Trade Center 2”, which sought to rebuild the Twin Towers — only this time, even taller! It is also no surprise that one of World Trade Center 2’s most enthusiastic proponents was none other than Donald Trump. Trump’s political movement is essentially identical to his desire to put those towers back; to restore things to the way that they were, but better; in short, to Make America Great Again.
I do not believe America can be Made Great Again. You cannot reverse a suicide. America sat on the wall and had a great fall; and all of Trump’s horses and men will not be able to put it back together again. The “Based” Right is like King Lear looking down at Cordelia’s dead lips, imagining signs of life, yearning to tell old tales and laugh.
Trump will serve out his second term, American restoration will not take place, and everybody will be shocked. As if political schemes can make dead things alive again. As if Lazarus could have been shaken awake.
If my words enrage you on one hand, or launch you into despair on the other, you are making the same mistake that America made when it thought itself able to heal the world: you are mistaking the temporal for the eternal.
I am not “dooming” or “blackpilling”. On the contrary, I hope and pray that as things continue to fall apart, our Lord – He who is truly eternal, invincible, and salvific – will work without fanfare in the hearts of men like He always has in order to make something new out of what has passed.
This restoration will not be one of reversal, will not follow the logic of success and power used by the world to verify its projects and actions. Trump and his movement are not America’s salvation; there are a mere note in a long song of Providence — a song whose next note could be better or worse, but whose consummation we know to be the eschaton. This restoration may only be in its beginning stages when America is long gone, and will only be brought to completion on the last day.
By Luca Adamo
