It's a template thing. You just change the idea of who you are. And then cleave to that idea.
Arguments about whether government is good or evil lead nowhere. In the end, anyone sensible admits some government is necessary, so it is just a "how much is the right amount" question.
And then you try to make the bit that is there work as well as possible.
Okay - so having recognised this, the question is, who does the US want to be? How does it wish to see itself?
Good things are possible. They are not going to come from bullying, arrogance, dehumanising foreigners, these kinds of things. They are going to come from education, innovation, optimism etc.
This isn't a political thing. It's a whole society one. How does the US create a unifying sense of itself? - a thing that everyone can believe in?
It doesn't come from the arguments that folks are having now. And like you say, it doesn't come from trying to appear to be something you are not.
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