Earlier this year, I was struck by valiant, idealistic young people who came into the spotlight.
Renee Good, 37, shot on January 7, and Alex Pretti, also 37, shot on January 24, faced death for their beliefs.
But another young person came into power on New Year's Day 2026: Zohran Mamdani, age 34.
He beat the odds and Andrew Cuomo's money to become New York City's first Muslim mayor, speaking up for marginalized populations.
On February 8, despite rightwing outcries, Bad Bunny, 32, took the Super Bowl stage with a halftime show celebrating Puerto Rico in Spanish—a generous, joyous, multilingual America where anyone can dance with anyone.
Later that month, Oakland's Alysa Liu, daughter of a Chinese refugee, won figure-skating gold at the Olympics with a performance of freedom and joy.
She had dropped out, refusing to be controlled, then returned on her own terms.
As she skated out, she shouted, "That's what I'm fucking talking about," laughing joyously.
These were not typical Americans, but like the 8 million who showed up for the No Kings demonstration on March 28, they were Americans.
No Kings was unprecedented in size and scope, taking place in every congressional district.
The US is a perpetual question; these lives and performances were demonstrations of answers some have given and cheered.
I do not believe Trump will destroy the US, but he has badly broken it. What comes after must include consequences for criminals and a massive clean-up operation.
There will be no return to how things were; we must fix what allowed this destruction.
In the end, I return to Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg: "It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work ...
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
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That is an ideal never yet realized, yet a moral north toward which this country at its best has been pointing for 250 years.
