Trump Restores the ‘We’American Greatness, Jan 31, 2018, Roger Kimball
In The Meaning of Conservatism and several other books, the English philosopher Roger Scruton argues for the importance of the first-person plural—the “We†that binds us together as a community, a people, a nation. Tuesday night, in his magnificent State of the Union Address, Donald Trump did something similar.
Trump’s speech was full of memorable lines: the “new American moment,†“Americans are Dreamers, too,†“complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation.†But perhaps the most memorable line, playing off the president’s campaign slogan, came at the end: “It is the people who are making America great again.â€
Any dispassionate observer has to acknowledge that over the last year Donald Trump has given a series of great speeches. I use the word “great†advisedly. His speech in Riyadh about naming and battling Islamic terrorism; in Warsaw about supporting the core values of Western civilization; national security speeches emphasizing the ideal of peace through strength. Those were speeches for the history books. And on top of all those was Tuesday night’s speech at the Capitol. Its theme? Putting aside the partisan passions that divide us in order to go forward as a people united in the goal of making a better America.
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https://amgreatness.com/2018/01/31/trump-restores-the-we/
