Eric Holder Says America Was Never Great, Pence Responds with 4 Perfect Examples
Almost from the moment then-candidate Donald Trump debuted his “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan, many on the left have disingenuously asserted that the slogan hearkens back to the past eras of domination in this country by white men, during the time of slavery or when women lacked the right the vote and various minority groups were discriminated against.
Some on the left have even gone so far as to say that the United States of America was never a “great” nation at all.
America was never great. #JointSession
— antonio (@antoniodelotero) March 1, 2017
The contemptible former Attorney General Eric Holder seemed to embrace the leftist trope that America was never truly great — and the nation’s sins of the past outweighed anything good done in those days — during an interview Wednesday with MSNBC host Ari Melber.
“When I hear these things about let’s ‘Make America Great Again,’ I think to myself, exactly when did you think America was great?” Holder said. “It certainly wasn’t when people were enslaved. It certainly wasn’t when women didn’t have the right to vote. It certainly wasn’t when the LGBT community was denied the rights to which it was entitled.”
Holder admitted that America had done some “superb” things in the past, but nevertheless dismissed the notion that the nation had ever been truly “great,” as it was instead a constant “work in progress.”
“Looking back, ‘Make America Great Again’ is inconsistent with who we are as Americans at our best where we look at the uncertain future, embrace it, and make it our own,” he said.
Vice President Mike Pence responded to Holder’s dismissive commentary with a tweet that provided a few examples from the past when the greatness of America was on display, showing that the “Make America Great Again” slogan is not about any one particular point in time, but an embracing of the can-do spirit that has guided this nation to a host of incredible achievements.
.@EricHolder: “Exactly when do you think America was great?” pic.twitter.com/pFE5z5D756
— Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) March 28, 2019
Pence’s tweet featured a picture of then-General George Washington leading the Continental Army across the Delaware River for a surprise attack against the British army during the Revolutionary War. He also included the iconic photo of U.S. Marines raising the American flag over Iwo Jima in World War II.
More recent examples of greatness included a photo of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his “I have a dream” speech during the civil rights era, as well as a picture of the Cold War-era, space race-winning moon landing.
Those four undeniable moments of American exceptionalism — moments when America was indisputably “great” — seemed to provoke something of a backtrack on the part of Holder, albeit in a nuanced fashion that nevertheless still accused Pence and the Trump administration of disparaging America as it currently is and being “backward looking.”
Holder tweeted, “America IS great. And can-and must-be greater still. ‘Make America great again’ means YOU think America is not great now-and is backward looking. America is at its best when we look forward, embrace an uncertain future and make it ours. That is what defines American greatness.”
America IS great. And can-and must-be greater still. “Make America great again” means YOU think America is not great now-and is backward looking. America is at its best when we look forward, embrace an uncertain future and make it ours. That is what defines American greatness https://t.co/ASagCEPMZ5
— Eric Holder (@EricHolder) March 28, 2019
What Holder and his fellow Trump-hating leftist comrades fail to realize is, as mentioned previously, “Make America Great Again” is not in reference to any particular era in our nation’s past, but rather is intuitively understood by many Trump supporters as an encouraging and inspirational call for all Americans to strive to recapture that amazing and indomitable spirit of achievement, no matter the odds stacked against us.
Everyone acknowledges that our nation has sinned in the past, and we abhor those times in history when various segments of our society were unfairly mistreated. Our moments of failure as a nation are moments when Americans did not always live up to American ideals. No decent person wishes to return to such times when our nation failed to meet the lofty ideals of equality and exceptionalism set out by the founding fathers in the Declaration of Independence or Constitution.
But while the left chooses to focus solely on those sins at the exclusion of the great moments that rose above them, the right has decided to acknowledge that those sins occurred and move past them, while still highlighting the great moments of exceptionalism from the past that can inspire further exceptionalism in the future.
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