Still Searching for a Leader Who Sings My Song
If God Bless America were a president, it would be Donald Trump. Loud, triumphant, and unapologetically certain in its own greatness. It’s a song that declares America to be exceptional, blessed, and without equal—no questions asked, no room for doubt. It’s the kind of anthem that pairs well with a flyover and a fireworks display, a chest-thumping assertion that everything is just fine.
I don’t live in that America.
My America is the one in This Land Is Your Land. It’s the one you see when you drive across the country and stop in the places where factories have closed, where small towns feel forgotten, where the promise of opportunity doesn’t always hold up. It’s the one where people are still trying—trying to make something of themselves, trying to serve their communities, trying to carve out their piece of the dream. It’s the America that isn’t perfect but could be, if we worked a little harder to make it so.
Trump’s God Bless America vision is about certainty. It’s about winners and losers, about strength as the ultimate virtue. It doesn’t ask hard questions; it assumes America is already great, that it always has been, and that if you don’t see it that way, you must be unpatriotic. That’s why his leadership resonates with so many. It offers a kind of reassurance—America is blessed, America is powerful, and if you don’t feel that way, you’re the problem.
But This Land Is Your Land tells a different story. It’s about the people, not the power. It’s about looking around and asking, Who gets to share in this promise? It’s about recognizing that patriotism isn’t just about waving a flag—it’s about making sure that flag represents everyone, not just the people who already feel at home beneath it. It’s a song for the builders, the workers, the people who don’t assume the country is already great but believe it could be.
I’m still looking for a leader who sings that song.
I want a leader who understands that America is something we have to fight for—not in a battlefield sense, but in the way we treat each other, the way we make sure no one is left behind. I want someone who believes in the grit and determination of the American people but doesn’t pretend that struggle doesn’t exist. Someone who sees the sign that says No Trespassing and knows that too many people have been kept on the wrong side of that fence.
We haven’t found that leader yet. The loudest voices today are either telling us that everything is already perfect (God Bless America) or that everything is broken beyond repair. I don’t believe either of those things. I believe what This Land Is Your Land believes—that this country is still worth walking, still worth seeing, still worth making better.
And until that leader emerges, I’ll keep looking. Because this land is our land. But only if we make it so.