The great political scientist Harry Jaffa wrote on our bicentennial: In 1776 the United States was nothing, promising to become everything; having become everything, it now promises to become nothing. This is even truer today, on the cusp of our 250th anniversary.

A new Gallup poll reveals a record-low percentage of Americans proud of America, dragged down by our youth and only 36 percent of Democrats being proud of America. This was all foreseeable. For years, our schools have taught that America was a blight on the world, not a blessing. And American history is our high school seniors’ worst subject.

Thus, our high school graduates enter adulthood by the millions, every year, alien to a country they don’t know or were taught to dislike. As C.S. Lewis put it: “by starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes.”

Ronald Reagan’s farewell address called on us to teach patriotism again, informed patriotism. Now, more than ever, this holiday is the time to take up that challenge.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The nation goes into this fourth of July holiday weekend at pivotal period of our nation’s history.

Next year we’ll be marking 250 years of independence … our "semiquincentennial." Quite an achievement and a word —quite an experiment in democracy it has been.

As we mark this day, I don’t need to remind you—but it still bears stating: Our nation is deeply divided; often bitterly so divided; and with a number of examples we could point to, sometimes violently divided.

And yet I still resonate with the words of Abraham Lincoln—spoken a month before he issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country…. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.

I still believe it.

Have a great 4th. And may God bless America— “the last, best hope.”

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.