Politics For Happy People
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Politics For Happy People
Ten Reasons to be Thankful for America
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As America celebrates its 250th birthday, it's worth asking: Are we still grateful for the nation we've inherited?
In this special Independence Day episode, Joseph Backholm and Ashley Vaughan count down ten reasons America remains one of the greatest blessings in human history—from religious liberty and free speech to innovation, generosity, economic opportunity, and the founding principle that our rights come from God, not government. At a time when patriotism is declining, they make the case that freedom is not something to take for granted, but something to preserve for generations to come.
Welcome to politics for happy people, friends. We have a special, special, special 4th of July. You're being released on the 3rd of July. 10 Reasons to Be Thankful for America. Ashley, I'm excited about this one. Why are you excited, Joseph? I'm excited. Well, I just think it's so necessary. I mean, you know, it's it is the 250th, right? Most of us, none of us, have been around for all 250 years of it, but we've experienced a lot of it. We're pretty happy about it. And the reason I'm excited about it is because I think people need to understand how awesome it is to live in America. And a lot of people very clearly don't. You've seen, presumably, the data about how many people are not even like impressed with America, much less grateful to be here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. There was some recent poll data saying that more than half the country uh does not even want to live here.
SPEAKER_02Let's let's read about this. The share of Americans who say they are extremely or very proud to be America has fallen to its lowest level ever recorded by Galp. 58% down from 67% just a year ago. So in the last year, it's fallen from 67 to 58% of Americans who say they're very proud to be American.
SPEAKER_00Fallen from say that again? From 58%?
SPEAKER_02From 67% a year ago said they're very proud to be American. This year it was 58%. Okay, yes. So that's a that's a dramatic decline in one year. Yeah. I guess you know, moods are bad. This gets even worse when you consider partisan differences. Among Democrats, only 36% say they are extremely or very proud to be American. A dramatic 26-point drop from a year ago. So a year ago, I mean, yeah, they have become much more pessimistic. Um, 51% of Democrats say they sometimes or often fly the flag as a symbol of patriotism. So only half will do so. So we have, there's a lot of people who live in America who enjoy the blessings of America, who aren't impressed by it. And what I want to do today, and I think this is going to be helpful as we do celebrate, is I want to give you some reasons to celebrate, which is why we have our TEP 10 reasons to be thankful for America. This is by no means going to be the exhaustive list of all the reasons you should be grateful. But I hope it encourages you in your celebrations. And, you know, and as believers, anyway, we just have to be, we have to default to gratitude. But in this case, we are absolutely the trust fund babies of like government and politics in the history of humanity, and we need to appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I agree with you.
SPEAKER_02So let's go. You let's go from the top. We're gonna go through 10 very quickly. What's number one, Ashley?
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna kick it off with a big one. Number one, freedom of speech and religion. So, no country in history has protected individual expression and conscience as robustly as the United States of America. And the First Amendment is a legal provision and an important one in our constitution, but we also have a cultural commitment here to the idea, and this is an inheritance, as you said, but we have a cultural commitment to the idea that truth emerges from open debate, not government decree. So if you have a bad idea, we're going to out-argue it. We're not going to forbid it, we're not going to censor you. And people who have fled from countries where the wrong opinion means that they go to prison, uh, they know exactly how much uh the First Amendment is worth. And I do think that a lot of Americans take that for granted.
SPEAKER_02That's exactly right. And I think one of the reasons we don't take it, we we aren't grateful for it, is because we don't have any context for it. If you have not lived in a place where you can actually be punished, you can lose your job. I mean, I mean, even in Great Britain now, right, which is our you know, our political, you know, ancestors, you've got a lot of people going to jail right now for things they say on social media. They'll post something on social media and then they will be visited by the police within you know a handful of hours because they said something that was, you know, discriminatory or anti-Islamic or you know uh offensive in some way. So, yes, um, there are real challenges, right? None of this means there's not real challenges to our First Amendment jurisprudence and kind of our in our cultural value of the free expression of ideas, but that's who we have always been. It is in significant ways who we still are and what we need to defend. But be very grateful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And we are. Number two, top 10 reason to be grateful.
SPEAKER_00Give it to me.
SPEAKER_02Extremely grateful to be American, is the American economy. Um, the GDP reached 29 trillion in 2024. The International Monetary Fund estimated the United States' share of global GDP at approximately 26% of the whole world. We are 26% of the world's economic activity. It's all produced by a country that is about 4% of the world's population. For a more visceral comparison, in 2026, the United States economy stood at roughly 32.4 trillion, while China, with four times the population, came in second at 20.8 trillion. So we are like 60% larger than China, who's in second place, and they have four times as many people. Germany came in at a distant third at 5.45 trillion. California alone, no, we got beef with California in a variety of ways, right? But right now we're talking about the economy. California alone, if it were a country, would be the world's fifth largest economy. That's an amazing fact. State, right? So the what we are able to produce and do uh as a country is truly unparalleled. We all benefit from it. It's a lot um to do with the standard of living that we that we all enjoy, um, but be really, really proud that we are accomplishing things that no other country has. There, the reason is because we value individual effort. We reward it like nobody else, we uh we permit it like nobody else, and so we we benefit from uh the fact that people are free to rule and subdue. That's what we were commanded to do in the in the first two chapters of Genesis as a species. America makes it possible like no other place, we get results like no other place.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So you're getting into reason number three to love America, which is economic mobility, which goes along with economic prosperity. So America remains one of the few places on earth where what your parents did for a living doesn't necessarily determine what you'll do. And this was one of the founding ideals behind our entire project here in America, that your class, your status in life is not determined by the class or status or situation that your parents was. Um, so the immigrant who comes here and arrives with nothing, they can actually build something. And uh this has been done again and again. And I think it's really interesting. There's some Harvard research research that shows that uh that's kind of compared mobility uh rates and of people who are immigrating to different countries around the world. And first generation immigrants to the US outperform comparable cohorts in virtually every other country. And that is an incredible fact. So the immigrant that comes here and and starts with nothing and then can build something and build a new life for themselves, that is still a reality.
SPEAKER_02We are the land of opportunity. We always have been. And there is a reason that people are trying to break into our country all the time and get here no matter what. It's because it's better here than it is wherever they are and they know it in almost all cases. Now, this doesn't mean that people don't have great lives in other places, right? But the opportunity to go from poverty to relative prosperity, it doesn't mean everybody's gonna become Elon Musk, right? But the standard of living that for us is just normal and many of us are complaining about is absolute opulence for most people in the world. We don't have an appreciation for what it's like to really be poor, which is why we're not grateful for it. They're all begging for the standard of living that we are complaining about in many, many cases. The reason they want to come here is because they know it's possible. And we provide that opportunity for upward mobility that other people just don't. And if you have it, doggone it, be grateful for it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Be grateful for it. And and, you know, go to Haiti for the weekend.
SPEAKER_00Being able to chase your dream and having hope. That's an important thing.
SPEAKER_02That's exactly right. Reason number four medical innovations. We're talking a little bit about uh, you know, quality of life and standard of uh of living and the ability to kind of deal with our uh to get healthy and become healthier. American researchers, universities, and pharmaceutical companies have produced more life-saving drugs and medical breakthroughs than any other nation. Treatments for cancer, HIV, diabetes, heart disease that have saved hundreds of millions of lives globally were pioneered here. Now, the U.S. actually has produced more than 425 Nobel laureates. Around 71% of all Nobel Prizes ever awarded have gone to Americans, with about 29% of those being immigrants. How about that? Speaking of upward mobility, right? In medicine specifically, NIH funded or NIH affiliated scientists have shared in 104 Nobel Prizes. And we're going to set aside NIH concerns for today because we're being positive.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02The roll call of American pioneered breakthroughs is almost too long to recite. It's all the treatments for HIV and AIDS, the polio vaccines, chemotherapy, statins, insulin therapy, bypass surgeries. The list goes on and on and on and on. We have been a lot of that GDP that we just talked to, all that innovation, so much of that has been in breakthroughs that have allowed us to make people healthier, find cures for diseases, prolong lives, improve quality of life, all of that thing. All of that. And again, we create the environment where people can be creative, good things happen as a result of that. And we aren't just making life better for us, we're making life better for people all over the world. And if you can't feel good about that, there's something wrong.
SPEAKER_00That goes along with number five. We have created the technology that runs the world. The internet, the smartphones, social media, GPS, the personal computers, search engines, e-commerce, streaming. Almost every technology that defines daily life in the 21st century, the whole technological revolution that we've gone through has been invented, commercialized, and scaled by Americans. And just to name a couple of the companies that have built these innovations: Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, they employ millions, they serve billions around the globe. As you said, um, all of these things happened in America. So, you know, again, the internet and its defense capabilities, uh, GPS and its use with the US military, the personal computer, the smartphone, uh, search engines, um, social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, e-commerce, streaming with Netflix, uh, cloud computing with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google Cloud, all of these companies have created the operating system and just absolutely revolutionized life in 21st century civilization. And then also to mention SpaceX and their reusable rockets.
SPEAKER_02They're gonna move us all to Mars. And who's not grateful for that? Maybe that's the next frontier. No, it's not.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, these things, these things have revolutionized and uh and improved. I mean, obviously, all these technologies have come um with risks and and and challenges that we've had to work through as a society, and how do we use these things responsibly? Um, but it's it has been a net good for civilization.
SPEAKER_02Right. I mean, and then and there's a temptation as we go through this list to say, oh, I know that there's bad things about that, right? That that's just not the point today, because that's just life on earth. There's always trade-offs. But our problems are a luxury in so many cases. And the things that we're trying to critique and say, oh, that could be better. I mean, true, everything can always be better, but you have to pause, and in the celebration of America is a time to do that, and pause and acknowledge how much worse it could be. Because that's the thing we lose sight of when we're always like, you know, trying to fix the things that are wrong, is we lose sight of how much worse it can be and how much worse it would be, but for the things that that Americans have done, are doing, and the environment that makes all that possible.
SPEAKER_00And just anytime you're talking about technology and innovation, there's the opportunity to use it for good, and there's the opportunity to use it for for bad. And and how we use it needs to get worked out. Um, but these have all of these innovations in medicine and technology, all this has really improved life here on this planet.
SPEAKER_02And in Thank you, America. It's reasons to be grateful and proud to be here. Number six, agricultural abundance. And this is this is one that deserves a little bit of history. Do you know who Paul Ehrlich is?
SPEAKER_00I've heard of him, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Paul Ehrlich, for those who don't know who he is and Eli, he was long before you were born. Um, but Paul Ehrlich, back in 1968, wrote a book called The Population Bomb, where he predicted mass starvation by the 70s or 80s, and the time when Ashley and I were growing up, everybody was supposed to be starving because there wasn't going to be any food. Um, and you know, and we were supposed to stop having babies because the world is about to lose the ability to provide for all of the people in it. Now, those predictions, as we all now know, because that was all history, that is all now history, uh, they did not materialize. And why did they not materialize? Well, there's a lot of reasons, but um the US is now the largest agricultural exporter on earth. We ended starvation. And, you know, one of the reasons is because of an American agronomist called, named, not called, although maybe he was called that, Norman Borlag. Norman is credited with saving over a billion people worldwide from starvation. The World Food Program's then executive director said in 2009 that Borlaug saved more lives than any man in human history. Thanks to his innovations, Pakistan's wheat yield went from 4.6 million tons in 1965 to 8.4 million tons in 1970. India's went from 12.3 million to 20 million in the same period since 1968, as India's population has more than doubled. Its borlog-inspired wheat harvest more than tripled. This is a single American agronomist from Iowa who basically saved the world from starvation by innovating. We have, you know, there's lots of other people who are also other nations that are also producing um, you know, food for the world, but American innovations saved the world from starvation and just kind of helped demonstrate that all of the doomerism about people, because we know that God told us that we should rule and subdue, and we should also have lots of babies be fruitful and multiply. And and being fruitful and multiplying and carrying out the purposes that God gave us is not suicidal. It is in fact beneficial because people learn, we create, we innovate, and that's what continues to happen is the the the world is just not nearly as finite as people want to tell us. So go do good things. We have done good things, and we uh agricultural and the inner uh innovations and our ability to feed people is just one of them.
SPEAKER_00All right, number seven, US military protection of global order. The post-war, post-World War II international order, which includes free navigation of international waters, open trade, and no more great power wars thus far, is the most peaceful and prosperous era that human history has ever seen. Um, and it exists because the US chose to pay for it with our military strength. Since 1945, US dispense spending has kept shipping lanes open. The third Soviet expansion during that era rebuilt Europe under the Marshall Plan and imperfectly but consistently underwritten a system of alliances that have prevented the kind of continental wars that killed millions and millions and millions during the first half of the 20th century. So this is a this is a great accomplishment and a great service that that we have done to the world, to humanity.
SPEAKER_02Even right now, you know, what what's happening in Iran, we just need to understand the good there. It's it's a challenge. Are there are there legitimate questions about all of this? Yes, it is really important that Iran not get a nuclear war, nuclear weapon, because they will use it against us and really innocent people all over the world because they're maniacal and uh that's that's their religion, it's their worldview, it's their eschatology, all of those things. They want to die killing good people. It is really important they don't get nuclear war, nuclear weapons. Who are the only people that can stop us? It's us. Is it painless? No. Is it complicated? Absolutely. Is it important that somebody stand up and stop evil? Absolutely. Has the United States done that time after time after time after time? We have be proud of that. Be proud of that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Because nobody else is doing it. Nobody else would, nobody else could. We have leadership is hard and there's costs in in all sorts of ways, but it's good that it's happening, and we are the we have stepped up time and time again to stop evil people, and you should be proud of that as an American. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the next one real religious freedom. And you know, this is kind of connected to our uh this is number eight on our list. And we should connect it probably to the first one on our list when we talk about freedom of speech.
SPEAKER_00They are connected. Yes, but freedom of speech and freedom of liberal liberal.
SPEAKER_02America doesn't just protect religious liberty on paper. It produced a genuinely pluralistic religious society where faith communities of every tradition have been able to build institutions, raise families according to their beliefs, and participate fully in public life. The vitality of American religious life, particularly for Christians and originally for Christians, stands in stark contrast to the secularizing collapse happening across Europe. And that's true as well. Our religious institutions are thriving the ways others are not, in part because of their ability to just uh be free. It didn't happen by accident, it happened because government was never allowed to control the church, and that's part of it. Now, there's, you know, that's it that's a very strong statement, but it does not control the church. There is there is influence, uh, but our our history of religious freedom and in if and I keep saying this as we go through this list, but go someplace else sometime. Talk to some, you know, our brothers and sisters in China. What's life for Christians in Iran right now? What's life for Christians in Nigeria right now, right? We're a genuine, real genocide. Um, again, our problem, the things that we complain about are a blessing in so many cases. And the fact that we can even express our concerns about these things are a blessing. And most of us are not afraid of getting our heads chopped off or being sent to prison for saying the wrong thing. Our the our the environment here of the ability to express what we believe does continue to need to be defended. And we have to do so with vigilance, and we can't take it for granted and pretend that it's always going to be this way, but it has been this way, and it is this way. It is still good and worth being grateful for.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, number nine, American generosity. Americans gave almost $600 billion to charitable causes in 2024. That was a 6.3% increase from the prior year. Americans are roughly twice as generous in private giving as Canadians. Don't know why that should be, but I guess I'm proud of the fact of it. And three to 15 times as charitable as residents of. Other developed nations. Charitable giving has hovered around 2% of the US GDP for decades. Beyond money, approximately 63 million Americans, 25% of the adult population, volunteer their time each year, contributing an estimated $167 billion in service. This is such an interesting fact. When the 2004 uh Indian Ocean tsunami killed 230,000 people, the US government pledged $950 million in aid and deployed military assets in 48 hours. Then private American donations exceeded $1 billion more. That is amazing. And I'm so thankful to live in a country that is a culture, has a culture of generosity like this.
SPEAKER_02That's exactly right. And I also want to connect number nine, where we're talking about generosity to the one we just covered eight with religious freedom. And these things are connected because religious people are much more likely to give philanthropically. And I know that you know we we are often criticizing each other for our like stinginess, but the reality is um 65% of highly religious Americans donate money. Um, Americans with religious affiliation made an average annual charitable donation of $1,590 versus $695 for those with no religious affiliation. Not a huge number still, but a that is a more than 100% uh increase, right? And and we're not going to go deeply into that, but the point is religious people are far more generous than secular people. So the fact that we are more religious than other places makes us more generous, and those things are are connected.
SPEAKER_00I absolutely do personally connect those things because I see everything that I have been blessed with as a stewardship. It's not, it is mine, but ultimately it's a gift from the Lord. And I need to use it wisely. And God does call us to generosity and he does call us to serve others and to put others' needs before ourselves. And Jesus was the greatest example of this. And and that that is an outworking of my faith.
SPEAKER_02So it's not just our medical innovations and our GDP and our economic activity that is kind of overflowing into other parts of the world, though it is that when we see needs, when there are earthquakes in Venezuela and when there are tsunamis in Indonesia, right? Americans are the ones showing up through our massive network of NGOs that are very often privately funded because we care about people, because they also were created in the image of God, and we are historically generous to those people. We should be, it's good, um, but we also should know that that is true, and we should be proud of the fact that it is true. And that leads us to number 10 on our list, and that really is the idea itself of America. And why are all of these things? And I think this is a good one to end on because we talk about, you know, our generosity and our religious freedom and our the fact that we defeat evil and that we promote good and we feed people, and uh we're very innovative. All of those things are true, and I think they are true because of the original American idea that the Declaration of Independence, you know, detailed, is that our rights come from God, they are not granted by the state, and the purpose of government is to protect the rights that come to us from God. Government is limited in its jurisdiction. Government is also subject to God's law, which is the ultimate and final law. That is the American idea that unleashed people to be who God made us to be. And that that is that is distinct from all of the political experiments before America, which said, hey, the the the crown, the government is the final authority. We are subject to them. They are the ones who make the rules, they are the ones who either give rights or they take rights away. America was the place that said, no, they are not the final authority. God is the final authority. We have rights and value because God gave them to us, and it's the sovereign, it's the government's job to acknowledge those rights and to protect those rights. That is still our founding principle. We are working it out imperfectly, but because of that, everything else that we've talked about on the show, all of the other reasons to be grateful, are, in my judgment, a byproduct of that original understanding of the relationship between God and man and government and the church, how we should integrate, how we should work together. America got that more accurately than anybody else ever has. That's the reason why our lives are better than anybody's life has ever been in the history of humanity. We need to know it and we need to be grateful for it.
SPEAKER_00Thank God for the United States.
SPEAKER_02Right. And and that's the thing. It's it's our 250th birthday, and I'm we just have this attitude. I mean, and you see it in the polling that we started with of, hey, you know, there's all these problems. America's terrible. Um, you know, here's some bad things that happened, and those people did bad things, and all of which is true because we live in a sinful, fallen world, but we must, just as a matter of our character, um, choose gratitude because it just makes you happier. But objectively, if we can't be happy, no one has the right to be happy. Nobody has the right to be happy because our lives are so much better. So and and and and I'll also say that this is this is because we're we are trust fundies, politically speaking, it is not guaranteed to last. And this is, you know, the prodigal son, the the silver spoon people that we always make fun of, it's because you're squandering it, right? That's the risk that we're in, is we have inherited something other people built. We did not build this environment. We are enjoying this environment. And if we do not maintain it, it is not guaranteed to last. Human history demonstrates very clearly that it can go away because it has not existed for most people. So we aren't guaranteed to have this 30 years from now or 300 years from now. So we've got work to do to maintain this. It's like if you know if somebody bequeaths to you a mansion, what are you gonna do with it? Just live in it until it collapses or take care of it.
SPEAKER_00It's a good analogy. And it's a big part of the reason why we do what we do. That's why we started this podcast, why you've been working, Joseph, in this field for 20 years now.
SPEAKER_01Don't betray my edge, Ashley. I'm trying to pretend to be young.
SPEAKER_00I'm showing the gravitas that you bring, Joseph. Um, it it is it is it's why we care. It's a work of the heart. It's stewardship. It is. It's as a going back to the stewardship piece, it's a stewardship of this wonderful country that and the freedoms that we have inherited that many people uh died to bring to reality and have died defending.
SPEAKER_02That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_00Sometimes when I hear people talk, Joseph, I think, wow, people have died so that you could say something that's stupid. I really think that is. Well, and and and that is the reality. You could be free to be that stupid.
SPEAKER_02And so somebody else could come respond and in grace show you that it's stupid, so we don't like ruin each other's lives. So both things are true, right? But yes, okay, so it's you know, we're gonna celebrate the 250th. You know, we are kind of all year, but especially this weekend, and you know, do your cookouts, eat a hot dog, eat a hot dog, love your fireworks, family, sing Lee Greenwood, wear red, white, and blue, but in the course of all of this, resolve to not squander it, not waste it. Make sure that those who come after us look back and with gratitude toward us with the same way today we look back at gratitude with gratitude for those who came before us because it's awesome. We are really proud to be American. And when Gallup calls you doggone it, you should be very, extremely proud to be American. That's right. Thanks, friends, for joining us on this special Fourth of July episode. I really do hope you have a great, great time celebrating America's 250th um birthday because it's it's so much to be grateful for. New episodes every Tuesday and Friday. We'll see you the next one. Thanks so much.