America’s 250: American optimism isn’t naive. It just needs to be honest

“The American, by nature,” John F. Kennedy said, “is optimistic.” Never truer words were spoken. Though Left and Right often lament how this optimism affects our vision and action, the public has made good on it many times. Yet it needs to be a realistic vision.

American politicians, including Kennedy, nearly always succeed with an appeal to that optimism. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1932 campaign song was Milton Ager and Jack Yellen’s “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Ronald Reagan’s slogan was, “It’s Morning Again in America.” Donald Trump, famous for speeches of all kinds, including “American Carnage,” is nevertheless essentially an optimist for whom the future is “A New American Golden Age” in which everything will be Yuge. Even Barack Obama, arch-skeptic of U.S. exceptionalism, relentless apologist for America’s sins, and “Klingon Prison” presidential library builder, sailed into office on “Yes, We Can!”

These and many other candidates channeled (or exploited) our happy-go-lucky American character and sold the people on a vision of going lucky with them as our representatives. Those who looked down in the mouth on the platform, such as the toothsome 1979 preacher of “American Malaise,” Jimmy Carter, usually found themselves gasping for electoral air.

It is probably a case of natural temperament, but those who claim Eeyore the Donkey as spirit animal and Debbie Downer as patron saint will probably always remain on the outside of the U.S. success story unless they are good at conspiratorial accounts of our present predicament. The public does not mind bad news bearers when they come with the rationale of unfair causes. That, after all, means that they can fight and win.

While it is often fashionable to lament America’s optimism, the case for stopping it is much weaker than for mending it. Conservatives can grouse that Americans hold a progressive vision of things always getting better, when in reality, they often get worse.

They can quote C. S. Lewis’s hard lesson that nations and empires are mortal while only souls are immortal. Liberals and leftists can indeed observe with some (but only some) accuracy that our history has many dark shadows, demonstrating that they indeed did not always get better in all ways. Both have a point to make, but the answer isn’t despair.

Golden bird, a stylized bald eagle, is perched as a finial atop a flag pole of the American flag. (Getty Images)

" data-large-file="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/iStock-146071893-e1782747369155.jpg?w=696" src="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/iStock-146071893.jpg?w=696" alt="American flag American history Patriotism" class="wp-image-4607998">(Getty Images)

History is not the capital “H” version progressives always sell us, always bending toward justice and casting the villains into the ditch, even if we describe it in our more accurate understanding of justice. No, we cannot guarantee that this country, Novus Ordo (new order), that it was in its time, will necessarily be Seclorum (for the ages). Yes, our past shows dark, uncomfortable, and even losing moments that must be faced.

Remembering our defeats and difficulties properly is the condition for an optimism that regards the good that we wish as only possible through many trials and tears. A good aid in remembering this can be found in the work of the great American author and illustrator Howard Pyle (1853-1911).

Best known for the imaginative children’s literature he wrote and illustrated, Pyle is responsible for America’s imagination of Robin Hood, King Arthur’s Knights, and pirates. He also provides much of our founding era’s visual imagination in paintings and illustrations seen in movies and history books. In his paintings, especially for Henry Cabot Lodge’s The Story of the American Revolution, Pyle captured the realism and drama that thrills us. He was at his best when depicting America’s victories and defeats.

AMERICA’S 250TH BIRTHDAY IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO RENEW OUR COMMITMENT TO CIVIC EDUCATION

Pyle’s “The Nation Makers,” depicting Washington’s army at the losing, 1777 Battle of Brandywine, and “The Attack Upon the Chew House,” showing another failed 1777 attack upon General Howe’s men at their Germantown, Pennsylvania, encampment, capture the American spirit. While the latter captures the chaos, smoke, and difficulty, the former depicts men marching proudly into battle in tattered uniforms. We know they lose the battle. We know they also win the war.

Keeping nations is like making them. It takes courage to fight even when the odds are against us. Transformed by clear sight and courage, American optimism attains that greater virtue we call hope.

David P. Deavel (@davidpdeavel) teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative.