The Fairytale Of An America Without Limits

Leftism is reducing America to a self-hating, government-dependent, multicultural mess that still believes it has the wealth and moral authority to change the world.

Allan J. Feifer | October 28, 2026

After World War II, we Americans understood our origin story: we were that shining city on a hill. The world didn’t just admire us; it advanced because of what we built. That confidence has eroded, replaced by a culture that treats our manifest inheritance too casually, elects officials who mistake popularity for competence, and shows far too little patriotism.

To understand what we’ve lost, we must remember what made America exceptional. We created a nation based on consent of the governed, inherent rights, and the idea that people rise by effort, not birth. It broke with every old-world hierarchy. Today, few even grasp the premise.

Those principles let us confront our failures and correct them. They unleashed innovation that reshaped industry, medicine, agriculture, communications, and technology. After two world wars, we rebuilt former enemies, anchored alliances, and helped free nations prosper. America didn’t just improve life here—it changed the modern world’s trajectory. We were deeply involved, and the entire world was better for it.

Continued exceptionalism is not guaranteed. Each new generation must pay the ferryman through effort, reason, and sometimes even with our very blood.

So where did we go wrong? It begins by viewing our country’s imperfections as proof that the system itself was defective. We recast our history as an indictment of our sins rather than an inheritance to preserve and pass along.

From that loss of faith in ourselves, it was easy to take the next step in societal deconstruction: We replaced individual merit with group identity, personal agency with grievance, and personal responsibility and accomplishment with government largesse. That last ushered in an era of massive government bureaucracy, debt, and, all too often, feckless leadership.

Along the way, we abandoned the notion of the individual will that built, invented, fought, and sacrificed. We once understood that progress demanded initiative and effort. Today, too many Americans are passive, pensive, and afraid, like........

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