A FIGHT FOR THE LIGHT TO WIN
THE ATTITUDE THAT WILL SAVE THE UNITED STATES
In “A Fight for the Light to Win,” Manuel Hinds argues that the United States is undergoing a crisis not because the American people have fundamentally changed, but because a minority of unrepresentative, authoritarian figures have seized control of the federal government, spreading division and moral decay. Drawing on a conversation between Adam Kinzinger and Terry Moran, Hinds highlights the danger of mistaking loud, destructive leadership for strength, and calls for Americans to rediscover their national character—rooted not in race or origin but in shared ideals and civil debate. Despite the darkness, he insists the core values of American liberal democracy remain alive among ordinary citizens, who must now reassert them to restore the nation's true identity.
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Nobody should be surprised by Donald Trump’s fiery attack on American liberal democracy during his second term. Like many aspiring tyrants, he openly announced his plans, and, during his first term, he took many actions that demonstrated he was seriously intent on carrying out such an attack (such as January 6th). What is surprising is the population’s apparent acceptance of his actions.
Indeed, there has been resistance to Trump’s increasingly blatant abuses of power. However, it has been largely inadequate to stop or at least limit his attacks. For Americans and foreigners alike who have known the United States for many years, this has been more than surprising. It has been unbelievable because it contradicts what we know not only about the country’s history but also our personal experiences with American society and people.
When looking at the dismal moral standards now visible in the federal government, the question arises: Were Americans always like this, or have they changed so drastically in recent times? Was that decency that transpired from both big and small cities and the countryside genuine? Did they fake it for 250 years?
This is impossible. So, have they really changed in such a short time, less than a generation? That seems very unlikely. Some people may have changed, but not all of them, not everyone who has stayed silent. Casual observation supports this impression. The people in the federal government do not seem like traditional Americans in their attitude and language. As Terri Moran mentions in a mutual interview with Adam Kinzinger I discuss later on, the Americans you see around keep on looking normal. The untypical, the misfits, are those in the government.
A third possibility is that the government has been taken over by the untypical, a minority that is not representative of the American population and culture that, through a constant injection of divisiveness, has divided and conquered the country.
Ironically, in the name of restoring an imagined American identity rooted in racial supremacy, disrespect for women, contempt for individual rights, and spite for empathy and moral standards, they have stripped the country of its true identity. They are giving the impression that the old, decent United States is no longer there.
But it’s there.
This makes a tremendous difference in the outcome of the current struggle for the survival of the principles and values that have given solidity and progress to the United States.
This is the main topic of a recent conversation between Adam Kinzinger and Terry Moran that everyone should see as a window into the United States, which has always been this way and will be again once the people wake up and reaffirm their true identity.[i]
A DARK TUNNEL
It's easy to become pessimistic because this problem is coming from an angle we have become rusty at managing. For centuries, we have relied on solving problems through science, primarily the hard, physical sciences, and, when those fall short, through the softer social sciences. But sciences cannot tell us anything about values and principles, which are at the core of the problems we have to solve. We would love to have a black box that would tell us what to do, how to change our feelings and our behavior so that divisiveness would disappear, honest leaders would be followed (there are many but people are preferring the authoritarians that promise certainties) and everybody would be happy forever after.
Such a box doesn't exist.
This is not a matter of science. It is a matter of character.
However, the nature of the problem gives the United States an advantage in solving it because the country is fundamentally built on character. The identity of other nations is based on a shared ancient origin. This is what the MAGA supporters want to turn the country into. Many believe that by doing this, they will strengthen the bonds that unite the American people, but they would be weakening them. Nothing can strengthen the bonds that unify a society more than the desire to belong and work together with other Americans to build a society based on shared ideals—something that has motivated all the immigrants to arrive and create America. And this is character —the bond that has tied the country together for 250 years.
Being American is not about where you come from, your sex, or your gender, but about your character. Those who have it will never take their identity for granted or turn against their countrymen, because doing so goes against their identity and their country.
In fact, this discussion is irrelevant to the people now in the government because they do not care about social cohesion. They only prioritize their businesses and political power, as well as their ability to humiliate others, thus elevating themselves to a higher status. However, this does not mean that all businesspeople share this view of life or lack values, as many are beginning to argue, focusing not on racial differences but on economic class divisions. These ideas are as divisive as those that emphasize race and origin as the basis for hatred.
As communism and Nazi fascism demonstrated during the tragic years of the twentieth century, both forms of hatred lead to similar outcomes. Communist hatred resulted in 125 million deaths, while Nazi fascist hatred caused 25 million. We should not jump from one dangerous situation to another. The difference that distinguished liberal democracy was in the means. As Adam Kinzinger said in that conversation with Terry Moran, the difference between liberal democracy and the twin tyrannies of Nazi fascism and communism is in the way conflicts are resolved, in the first case through civilized debates and tyrannies and killings in the second cases.
IS THIS POSSIBLE?
In the Kinzinger-Moran, Moran concluded the dialogue with these words, “I always thought that the real meaning of manifest destiny for me is that all these people from all over, [with] all their different ways of being and worshiping and living, [should come], all of us, together, in this place…and the test is, can we do it?”
A CONSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUE
Feeling Small
At a certain point in the interview, Terry Moran asked a crucial question. What happens to people living in countries falling under authoritarian crony capitalist countries?
Then he volunteered an answer. In the 1990s, when several East European countries were falling under such regimes (Hungary, Poland, Russia) he asked this question to a Polish friend, when the Law and Justice Party was attacking the judiciary while taking over the country.
“Your life gets smaller.”
Then, putting his hands like blinkers, he added,
“You don’t want to look around…you don’t stick your head up.”
Play Dead
Kinzinger added,
“The tendency is to feel small and feel defeated and exhausted.”
Kinzinger compared this to being isolated on a battlefield.
“I can’t win the battle, so I want to desist. You think about like ‘I am on the front lines in the Battle of the Bulge. Do I play dead and hope they pass me over?
“Now, here is the thing I’ll say to people is, look, America is not lost. I think we are in a bad trajectory, and I am not going to sugarcoat that…” But we are not lost.
“[Stil], the tendency is to feel defeated and be exhausted.”
People are Still Normal
Moran then intervened,
“I have a theory about American politics…the best kept secret in American politics is that most people are normal…It is this movement that has taken over the American government with Trump at its head that wants to make you think that there is a pack of wild people who are all the time ready to devour you, demoralize, dishearten you. And really, if you go out and touch grass, most people are still normal. That movement needs to be defeated with a strong heart in a normal way.”
He’s Not Tough
Talking about his last interview with Trump, the one that took place just before he was fired from ABC, Moran added,
“I got a sense after looking at him for an hour, that he is mean, like a dog in the street. But he’s not tough”
Adam then said,
“No, he is not tough! Tweating in all caps, in yeling, and being upset at an interview, there is no strength in that! That is somebody that is scared to death. He is somebody that only knows to function by being the victim…he is always the victim…
“Every time that somebody stands to him, he backs down. Every time! Every time! So, stand up to him.”
What is Real Patriotism?
Adam responded to Terry's question about what patriotism is, beginning with the most common perspective on the term.
“The vast majority of Americans have that natural and honorable human emotion of loving the land they are from.“
Then he gave it a deeper meaning.
“…we are this amalgam of people who are different but have decided that our differences, our conflicts will be resolved in the Capitol building of the United States through debate and not through sticks and stones and not through fighting.”
“Patriotism to me is believing that your fellow man is worthy of having a seat at the table as you do, and also I think it’s understanding that that discussion, those differences that we have are not fought out on the streets. They are fought out through civil, educated, honest debate. And compromise…”
Manifest Destiny
Terry Moran finished saying,
“That is the manifest destiny…”
Certainly, it is the manifest destiny of a country that is going through a period of darkness.
During this interview, Adam had said,
“[It is] a fight for the light to win.”
AWAKENING THE AMERICAN SPIRIT
How right they were. People watching this interview, and many others, will realize that the United States is standing up and awakening. Its people should be supported.
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Manuel Hinds is a Fellow at The Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise at Johns Hopkins University. He shared the Manhattan Institute's 2010 Hayek Prize. He has worked in 35 countries as a division chief and then as a consultant to the World Bank. He was the Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. His website is manuelhinds.com
[i] Adam Kinzinger Live with Terri Moran,
