[gailtate]

With apologies to David Brooks:

"If you don’t breathe the spirit of the nation, if you don’t have a fierce sense of belonging to each other, you’re not going to sacrifice for the common good. We’re confronted with a succession of wicked problems and it turns out we’re not even capable of putting on a friggin’ mask.

"In the days leading up to this July 4 weekend, I’ve been thinking about a scene in “Good Will Hunting.” We’ve seen Will perform all these mathematical feats and flights of verbal brilliance, but the Robin Williams character sits him down on a park bench and confronts him with a rot at the core of his character. 'I look at you; I don’t see an intelligent, confident man; I see a cocky, scared kid.'

"The last three years have been like that Robin Williams speech for a whole nation — an intervention, a truth-telling. I had hopes that the crisis would bring us together, but it’s made everything harder and worse. And now I worry less about populism or radical wokeness than about a pervasive loss of national faith.

"What’s lurking, I hope, somewhere deep down inside is our shared ferocious love for our common country and a vision for the role America could play as the great pluralist beacon of the 21st century. July 4 with be a good day to find that faith."

So it was written, so let it be done.

[gailtate]

With apologies to David Brooks:

"If you don’t breathe the spirit of the nation, if you don’t have a fierce sense of belonging to each other, you’re not going to sacrifice for the common good. We’re confronted with a succession of wicked problems and it turns out we’re not even capable of putting on a friggin’ mask.

"In the days leading up to this July 4 weekend, I’ve been thinking about a scene in “Good Will Hunting.” We’ve seen Will perform all these mathematical feats and flights of verbal brilliance, but the Robin Williams character sits him down on a park bench and confronts him with a rot at the core of his character. 'I look at you; I don’t see an intelligent, confident man; I see a cocky, scared kid.'

"The last three years have been like that Robin Williams speech for a whole nation — an intervention, a truth-telling. I had hopes that the crisis would bring us together, but it’s made everything harder and worse. And now I worry less about populism or radical wokeness than about a pervasive loss of national faith.

"What’s lurking, I hope, somewhere deep down inside is our shared ferocious love for our common country and a vision for the role America could play as the great pluralist beacon of the 21st century. July 4 with be a good day to find that faith."

So it was written, so let it be done.