Starting with purposefully created propaganda, CNN pundit Dana Bash begins questioning Interior Secretary Doug Burgum about protest marchers in Washington DC who Bash describes as extremists and racist. The heavy media promotion of the event is the first indicator of manufactured propaganda.  Ms Bash then lets the second indicator slip when she notes a viral […]

The post Sunday Talks: Secretary Burgum -vs- Dana Bash appeared first on The Last Refuge.

RealClearWire—Just a few years ago, wearing a sombrero on Halloween could get you banished from polite society for the social crime of “cultural appropriation.”

Nutrition experts argued that preventing obesity was a form of racialized “fatphobia,” even as scientific names of songbirds were purged in a moral campaign presumably aimed at white supremacy. Meanwhile, a slew of studies, papers, and articles argued that punctuality, excellence, and other forms of professionalism are “the systemic, institutionalized centering of whiteness.”

Today, as universities are dismantling their DEI bureaucracies, corporations are scaling back antiracism training, and academic trigger warnings and diversity pledges have become punch lines rather than cudgels, it is tempting to believe that the excesses of the woke movement have not just peaked but are a thing of the past, a passing fever dream of a peculiar era.

Such thinking, however, underestimates the power and persistence of “wokeness,” which was never a spontaneous outburst of moral righteousness born of COVID-19 lockdowns and rage over George Floyd’s death, but a philosophy and a worldview that were decades in the making. 

The success of candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America in recent congressional primaries in New York and mayoral races in Los Angeles and the District of Columbia underscores the enduring appeal of a leftist moral framework that casts American society as a Machiavellian struggle between the oppressors and the oppressed.

Although the DSA’s ascendancy in Democratic Party politics is a relatively new phenomenon, RCI’s analysis of high-profile issues that have defined the movement in recent years—from slavery reparations and polyamory to transgender advocacy and anti-colonialism—reveals that this dogma is still percolating through the culture, with some new outbreak almost every week. These deeper currents indicate that the DSA is not a driver but a reflection of wokeness—a worldview that continues to make advances and succeeds at the ballot box. 

Major League Baseball’s official condemnation this month of San Francisco Giants players who wore caps with Bible quotes on Pride Night is one example of enforcing ideological conformity that harkens back to the Great Awokening of 2020. A recent newspaper headline, “Minneapolis City Hall dances into Pride Month with a drag show,” is further evidence of woke’s staying power. 

Cultural Paradigm

In some ways, the social justice activists and politicians who envisioned diversity, equity, and inclusion as the pillars of American society have moved on to flirting with the moral imperative of micro-looting, lionizing Luigi Mangione for murdering a health care company executive, and celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk.

However one understands wokeness, it is not a mere hodgepodge of slogans and sporadic Twitter mobs. It is, instead, a cultural paradigm shared by millions of people in the West who espouse the inherent moral supremacy of the underdog and doubt the moral legitimacy of their own societies. These ideas have been homed in volumes of academic scholarship and backed by nonprofit funding over the past half-century, and they are increasingly codified into law and policy (see accompanying sidebar article). 

“People have the idea that it’s a fad. They don’t understand the antecedents and the roots,” said Jason Hill, a philosophy professor at DePaul University who specializes in political philosophy and moral psychology. 

“The moral grammar of the movements we call wokeness comes out of political liberalism,” Hill said. “Liberalism is ultimately a perfectionist and utopian project. It’s a never-ending project.”

Liberalism assumed its modern form in the 1960s, Hill said, when liberals abandoned the ideal of individual rights for group rights, in response to persistent Jim Crow-era discrimination. This shift led to a commitment to “radical egalitarianism,” in which discrimination and injustice are measured not by individual bigotry but by unequal group outcomes, and “the state has a responsibility to rectify those disparities.” Supporters refer to this commitment in a variety of ways—leveling the playing field, positive discrimination, or dismantling structures of oppression. 

‘Gestating Parents’

The critique of racism actually intensified after American society committed to fighting it—progressive scholars have described the scourge as “systemic racism” and “racism without racists”—expanding into a broader assault on other institutions and social norms, such as colorblindness, binary gender, colonialism, capitalism and other supposed legacies of European culture.

John McWhorter, a Columbia University linguist and longtime social commentator on race, said on a podcast this month that “the era of a particularly abusive kind of wokeness”—where opinions and speech were policed by the “excommunicator” and the “defenstrator”—has peaked in academia and in the arts. McWhorter said this militancy is “applied to different subjects” now—such as the Israel-Palestine debate, and in transgender advocacy. 

“It’s obvious that the leaders of the trans movement, especially since ’20, have taken on that prosecutorial, anti-reasoning attitude,” McWhorter said. “And I hate to say that a lot of them are still doing it, and they’re modeling that on what they hoped would work in 2020 and 2021.”

The continuing wave of social justice consciousness-raising will sound familiar to anyone who has been following the issue. State governments in states controlled by Democrats remain committed to establishing slavery reparations programs. The city of New York has issued a 375-page equity plan that sounds as if it were written in 2020 by Ibram X. Kendi—the bestselling author who argued that “the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.” And academic conferences by groups like the Modern Language Association and the American Academy of Religion continue to indulge in agitprop chic, featuring such topics as “Unpacking White Dominance” and “Structural Violence and Gendered Resistance.” 

In the realm of gender politics, the normalization of polyamory is making inroads in municipal governments and in progressive churches. New York State this month replaced the words “mother” and “father” in the state’s family law with “gestating parent” and “non-gestating parent.” Biological males who say they are girls continue winning trophies in girls’ high school sports. And a federal court recently ruled that a biological male with fully intact male genitalia who identifies as a woman must be granted access to an all-women’s nude spa (see sidebar).

Even the Daughters of the American Revolution has been swept up in the rapid social changes. The patriotic heritage group has voted to continue granting membership to transgender daughters who were born as sons. 

The persistence and strength of this activism is underscored by the fact that it is happening as the Trump administration, Republican-controlled states, and conservative legal advocates are doing everything they can to stop these ideas from spreading. President Donald Trump has threatened to withhold billions of dollars of federal funding from institutions that don’t comply with his demands to remove DEI, antisemitism, and other social justice activism from the curriculum. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating the nation’s leading medical schools for allegedly giving black applicants racial preferences over whites and Asians. Conservative states and a number of private universities have resumed using standardized tests in college admissions. Alabama and Texas have essentially put the state university systems in receivership in a bid to stop professors from teaching Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory to undergraduates. 

But not all is as it seems. Some colleges that use standardized testing have different cutoffs for Asians, whites, and African Americans, based on proxies such as school district or other “holistic” indicators. Universities have slashed DEI programs, but subsequently a number of them were forced to fire diversity officers who were caught on camera bragging that their campus is still fully committed to DEI, and university officials have merely rebranded, not eliminated, race-based and queer-advocacy programs. 

Core Beliefs

The core philosophical premise of wokeness is that social structures and cultural norms privilege some groups and harm or oppress others, creating power asymmetries and inequitable outcomes. Specific to the United States and Europe, males, heterosexuals, whites, and Christians continue to hoard power, privilege, and resources, benefiting from unfair advantage.

The way to address this unjust dominance is through redistribution—by affirmative action, by diversity programs, by inclusive language, and by education that emphasizes the imperceptible workings of privilege and power—in order to equalize group outcomes.

The criteria expand over time for what counts as harm and oppression, so that even challenging progressive beliefs or questioning black and queer peoples’ “lived experience” becomes an offense against the moral order. Meanwhile, the number of victimized identity groups multiplies, creating an endless mission creep that inevitably leads to culture wars and political conflicts. 

Reparations for African Americans and descendants of slavery are one of the original progressive social justice commitments. For decades, it was a pipe dream of black activists, but in recent years, it has been taken seriously by policymakers.

At least five states and more than a dozen cities have created task forces or commissions to study slavery reparations, according to the Associated Press, and there have been more than 460 reparations initiatives in this country, from commemorations to restitution. This year, Maryland became the latest state to vote in favor of studying slavery reparations for African Americans, establishing a 23-member reparations commission to formulate an apology, assess collective responsibility, and calculate monetary compensation. Last fall, California became the first state to create a Slavery Descendants Bureau to certify black beneficiaries who will receive reparations in “recognition and healing for the savagery of forced human slavery in the United States.” Internationally, the United Nations General Assembly recently passed a reparations resolution declaring the European enslavement of Africans as the “gravest crime against humanity.”

Racial equity advocates are keeping a low profile to evade unwanted attention from the Trump administration. One can only assume that these activists have not abandoned their goals but are merely biding their time. However, they have not completely exited the public stage, as evidenced by an ambitious equity plan issued by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Office of Equity & Racial Justice.

Among the plan’s statements: “New York’s history has been one of colonization, exploitation, and racial oppression.” The 375-page document lauds Black Lives Matter, honors George Floyd, celebrates “intersectionality,” and describes racism as a “public health crisis.” Citing “grave injustices,” “atrocities,” “other forms of violence” committed against “Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and other People of Color, women, religious minorities, immigrants, people who are LGBTQ+, and people with disabilities” over the centuries, the plan declares: “Because racism is a race-explicit system, anti-racism requires race-explicit strategies.”

Land Acknowledgements

Another front in the progressive playbook is the recognition of reparations for indigenous tribes that were displaced by European settlers. The wish list for this movement runs the gamut from reciting “land acknowledgments” at public gatherings to the Land Back movement’s pursuit of sovereignty over ancestral lands. 

The movement’s ethos is captured in the science journal Nature, a once-prestigious and now highly politicized publication in print since 1869, which ran a piece last summer written by eight indigenous scholars advocating for an “indigenous agenda in science” rooted in indigenous “lived experience.” 

“White scholars must recognize, read and cite Indigenous scholarship,” the essay says. “But they must also engage with it in deep, relational ways and be open to fully understanding its messages, even if it makes them uncomfortable—especially, we argue, if it makes them uncomfortable.”

The scholars echo the spirit of Ibram X. Kendi and critical race theorists who insist that political neutrality is a myth, and that reluctance to endorse their cause is tantamount to endorsing white supremacy: 

“Scientists must also attend to their own racism,” the scholars state. “It is not enough to be non-racist. Structural issues and inequities exist in the Western academy. Those who avoid engaging with racism and colonialism in scientific works and spaces merely promote the status quo.”

Transgender politics has now eclipsed racial equity as a rallying point for progressives. Trans “rights” has been a core commitment for Democrats at least since 2012, when then-Vice President Joe Biden first declared that trans rights are “the civil rights issue of our time,” a claim Biden repeated over the years and turned into the moral cornerstone of his presidency while in the White House.

The list of the movement’s demands is encyclopedic in scope. It includes puberty blockers with few questions asked, cross-sex hormones for adolescents, and access to sex-change surgeries. Activists also insist on the constitutional right of biological males who identify as women to access women’s sports, changing rooms, and other facilities.

Hundreds of K-12 schools ban “misgendering” and conceal student gender transitions from parents if the student requests it. These positions are underpinned by years of scholarship in queer theory and gender theory, which question the moral and scientific legitimacy of binary gender and biological sex (see sidebar). 

Of the many political conflicts involving transgender advocacy, one involves Catholic nuns in New York who operate a care facility for dying cancer patients. The nuns were threatened with fines by state authorities who demanded that the nuns assign transgender patients to rooms based on stated gender identity rather than biological sex, even over the opposition of a roommate.

The state also says the nuns must use patients’ preferred pronouns, including when the patient is not present, or presumably even alive. The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne have sued New York state officials in federal court to seek an exemption from state policy. 

Polyamory Rising

Closely related to transgender activism is the push for full legal recognition for polyamory. Consensual non-monogamy is said to be as central to queer identities and the queer “lived experience,” so that discriminating against polyamory becomes a proxy for discriminating against LGBTQ+ people.

The mainline Presbyterian denomination, PCUSA, considered a proposal this summer on whether its clergy should be required to be monogamous or if they can engage in consensual extramarital relations or non-monogamous sex. Notably, the denomination did not reject the idea outright but referred it to further study. 

The queer-affirming group, More Light Presbyterians, released a statement saying that enforcing monogamy is tantamount to discrimination  and that a Presbyterian vote for monogamy “will inevitably be experienced and enacted as an attack on queerness.”

The normalization of polyamory continues generating breathlessly supportive coverage from elite media that legitimizes and glamorizes free love: Scientific American (“An anthropologist’s detailed research shows polyamorists focus on intimacy and honesty, not sleeping around”), Los Angeles Times (“People in polyamorous relationships fight ‘shame,’ demand legal protections”), and The Guardian (“Polyamorous Americans are celebrating new laws establishing their ‘inherent worth and dignity’”). 

Not everyone in the world of arts and letters is so sanguine about the imminent demise of a protean ideology that seems to have nine lives.  As the sombrero-flaunting novelist Lionel Shriver has observed: “This dogma has infected all our institutions like a fungus. It won’t be easy to eradicate. Ever notice how quickly, after a full complement of treatments, athlete’s foot comes right back?”

This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

RealClearWire—In 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency tried to make it harder for hospitals to obtain essential sterilized medical equipment by threatening to regulate the American industry out of business. Two years later, the EPA is finally safeguarding the medical equipment supply chain by rescinding a damaging and badly conceived rule.

The rule centers on a substance known as Ethylene Oxide. Although it causes cancer when inhaled at unsafe levels, EtO is a critical chemical used to sterilize half of all medical equipment such as bandages, pacemakers, and surgical kits that cannot withstand other sterilization methods. In a 2024 Final Rule, the EPA tried to force medical sterilization centers to build near-perfect infrastructure to reduce their EtO emissions to 0.1%. Under the previous standard, the

EPA allowed only 1% into the atmosphere. To meet the new, more stringent standard, the 2024 Final Rule mandated Permanent Total Enclosure requirements that the EPA is now acknowledging were too expensive and risked shutting down small sterilization facilities. Most PTE systems are custom-designed, and the EPA estimates the annualized costs to implement would be $9.4 million per year, spread across 28 facilities. For larger businesses, adding over $335,000 in annual compliance costs is manageable, but slapping on such a large expense on a small business risks driving them out of business.

PTE requirements have also never been tried on such a large scale. The 2024 Final Rule incorrectly assumed that PTE rules in small-scale food and candy packaging warehouses (which are often as small as an average living room) could be applied to facilities that are 25 to 50 times larger.

Forcing manufacturing buildings that span tens of thousands of square feet to redesign their sterilization facilities to comply with the new PTE rules would require months of facility shutdowns. This would put a major strain on medical supply chains by shuttering smaller sites that can’t handle that kind of delay. It would also prevent hospitals from procuring the sterilized tools and medical devices they need.

The 2024 rule was never implemented and was actually delayed due to industry concerns over its feasibility and the national security imperative to maintain the U.S. medical supply chain. Essentially, the EPA concluded that additional controls beyond existing standards would produce minimal risk reduction at substantial cost.

When Congress amended the Clean Air Act in 1990, it recognized EtO as a hazardous chemical, while giving the EPA discretion on how to limit EtO emissions. When implementing the EtO regulations decades ago, the EPA originally ruled that the medical sterilization industry was not a significant source of these emissions, as part of its comprehensive plan to reduce EtO emissions nationwide.

Currently, there are only 88 commercial sterilization facilities in the entire U.S. Together, these 88 facilities account for less than 3% of total nationwide EtO emissions. When an industry that emits less than 3% of EtO is responsible for sterilizing 50% of the nation’s life-saving medical gear, as a matter of public health it is necessary to balance the needs of the medical supply chain against the minimal EtO emissions caused.

Finally, and most critically, there is no other immediate replacement chemical that can deeply sterilize sealed, bulk-packaged medical devices and supplies without destroying delicate plastics or electronics inside. Excessive regulation of an essential chemical may cause firms to relocate their operations abroad.

Regulating away the domestic use of the only currently known effective sterilization chemical in many contexts, for questionable environmental and health reasons, exposes U.S medical supply chains to unnecessary risks and artificially reduces economic competitiveness. One only needs to recall the supply shortages of personal protective equipment at the height of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, to appreciate the short-sightedness of regulating such an important medical industry overseas.

The EPA is right to reevaluate and rescind the 2024 Final Rule. Overly burdensome regulations would suffocate this vital industry and risk forcing a transition to foreign supply chains for medical sterilization when a domestic industry is already in place and flourishing. Removing this regulation will restore a balanced, scientific evidence-based approach to rulemaking that will boost economic growth, maintain existing environmental protections for surrounding communities, and safeguard our country’s medical supply chains.

This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.

U.S. — With several areas across the globe battling record high temperatures, Americans have graciously offered to help by turning their air conditioning down to 65 degrees and opening the windows.

The media and Canadian government discussions around the U.S-Canada trade and economic relationship, specifically as they pertain to the USMCA (CUSMA) continue to be fascinating. As we noted over a year ago, the expressed perception from the Canadian side was remarkably disconnected from the most likely scenario. The level of entrenched disbelief that the U.S. […]

The post A Shift Begins? Canadian Media Start Discussing Six-Month USMCA Termination Possible appeared first on The Last Refuge.

An Arizona election policy could make it more difficult for law enforcement, service members, or other uniform-wearing individuals to vote, according to a federal lawsuit.

Democrats are frequently eager to use the phrase “voter suppression” when talking about voter ID or other election procedures to verify voter eligibility. But Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, issued an Election Procedures Manual for the state that the Pima County Republican Party argues would make it more difficult for people wearing uniforms to vote.

According to the party’s complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, the language in question regards what the secretary of state’s office says is meant to deter voter intimidation. The portion of the manual at issue concerns prohibited behavior at the polls such as “impersonating” law enforcement, but then it adds, “or otherwise wearing … uniforms.” 

The plaintiffs agree with rules against impersonating law enforcement, but contend the vague language, such as “or otherwise,” is broad enough to give election workers latitude to determine whether even those authorized to wear a uniform could intimidate other voters.

The problem is not theoretical, said Marshall Yates, strategic counsel for the Oversight Project, a watchdog group that is representing the Pima County GOP. He notes a Tucson, Arizona, police officer testified in the case that election workers gave him a tough time voting in the 2024 election because he was in uniform and had a gun holstered, though the officer was eventually able to vote.

“This EPM is designed to discourage more people from voting in person so the state can shift to mail voting,” Yates told the Daily Signal. “There is a clear ideologically based anti-police, anti-military bias. A police officer voting in uniform should be the least intimidating thing. The aim is for law enforcement to have no choice but to vote by mail because they won’t be welcome at polls.”

Yates said the Election Procedures Manual gives so much discretion to election officials that they could prohibit uniformed firefighters, EMTs, or security guards from voting, violating the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

“It’s all up to the election official to decide what constitutes intimidation. It’s far too much discretion,” Yates said.

The state’s Election Procedures Manual has a section about clear cases of voter intimidation.

Specifically on the contested point, the manual says, “In addition to the potentially intimidating conduct outlined above, the following may also be considered intimidating conduct inside or outside the polling place,” before listing conduct such as aggressive behavior, threatening other voters, or blocking an entrance.

It then lists as potential intimidating conduct, “Impersonating a law enforcement officer or otherwise wearing clothing, uniforms or official-looking apparel intended to deter, intimidate, or harass voters.”

This could affect local police, as well as federal law enforcement, such as Border Patrol agents or Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents working in Arizona who might opt for in-person voting during a lunch break or on their way home from work.

“Any rule that could potentially prevent our brave law enforcement officers, or any American citizen, from exercising his or her right to vote is wrong,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Daily Signal. The agency is not a party to the litigation.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Michael Liburdi, an appointee of President Donald Trump, presided over the case. Pima County includes the Tucson area.

A spokesperson for the Arizona secretary of state’s office declined to comment for the record on the case to the Daily Signal since it is pending litigation. But in May, Calli Jones, a spokeswoman for the office, told the Arizona Daily Star the Election Procedures Manual does not automatically bar someone in uniform from voting; she said that uniformed police officers do not have to change before voting and can carry a firearm if uniformed and wearing a badge.

“The guidance we provided is to assure that there is no intimidating environment that voters have to participate in,” Jones told the Daily Star.

Kathleen Winn, chairwoman of the Pima County Republican Party, also declined to comment for the record because the case is pending litigation.

Plaintiffs are also challenging the manual’s new limits on electioneering outside a polling place, which extend beyond the statute. State law stipulates no electioneering for or against a candidate within 75 feet of a polling place. But the manual says, “Additionally, no electioneering may take place outside the 75-foot limit if it is audible from a location inside the door to the voting location.”

The Pima County Republican Party contends a lack of objective definition of what is audible, or a defined decibel level, is a violation of the First Amendment and could again leave too much discretion to election officials at a polling place.

THE DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION— In a late-night speech capping the semiquincentennial anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, President Donald Trump invoked familiar themes of patriotism, bravery, and sacrifice to declare that the story of the United States of America is worth cherishing while being far from over.

Though the threat of severe weather delayed the planned conclusion to Independence Day festivities in the nation’s capital, large crowds of determined Americans and visitors were observed surging towards the National Mall to view what the president teased as a record-breaking fireworks display, if not also his speech. The president, originally expected to give remarks around 10 p.m. EDT, took the stage at 11:15 p.m.

“That show tonight, you heard it was over. And what happened? You came back,” Trump observed. “And this American flag still waves, proud and free and beautiful. We have thrived and flourished because our founders were great. Our cause was just. Our people are brave. Our culture is exceptional. And our destiny is written by God.”

“And as we can see here tonight, after 250 years, the spirit of 1776 still lives within us all,” he continued. “It still roars in the hearts of our nation’s capital. It still burns in the heart of every patriot, thunders through every city and town. And it still lights the entire world with the glow of American liberty. And there is nothing like that.”

Punctuating the president’s remarks were numerous living and material manifestations of that enduring spirit.

The commander in chief, in a characteristic flair, displayed “flags that have seen a lot,” including one of the nation’s earliest, dating back to 1777. Bearing 13 stars and 13 stripes to represent the number of American colonies who declared their independence from Great Britain 250 years earlier, Trump highlighted a “real deal” flag which flew victorious at the Battle of Saratoga in New York. The battle, considered a turning point in the Revolutionary War, was a key American victory which secured a French alliance.

“One out of every 100 Americans gave their lives in the fight for independence,” he reflected while noting the flags “remind us of who these heroes were and what they gave us.”

The president then recalled the heroism of William Carney, who escaped slavery to become a Union soldier in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry during the Civil War. Carney was participating in the 1863 assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina when his regiment’s color bearer was shot. Despite suffering multiple severe wounds, he kept the flag raised. When he returned to Union lines, Carney famously stated, “The old flag never touched the ground!” Carney became the first African American to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Likewise, the flag which draped over the casket of Abraham Lincoln in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall was displayed before Saturday’s crowd. Trump then noted the bravery and selflessness of Vietnam veteran and Medal of Honor recipient Colonel Parris Davis as he saluted the colors. Davis, then a captain with the 5th Special Forces Group, led U.S. advisers and an inexperienced South Vietnamese company in a June 18, 1965 assault against a Viet Cong regional headquarters. Facing heavy fire after the strike, Davis refused multiple medical evacuations after being wounded to stay with his troops and directed a counterattack while preventing the loss of any American soldiers. He famously said, “Sir, I’m just not gonna leave. I still got an American out there.”

Trump noted 11 Gold Star families were present at the night’s event and that he would present medals to them recognizing the sacrifice of their loved ones.

“In this special 4th of July, we give you our undying gratitude and promise to redeem the sacrifice of your heroes by preserving the America that they love,” he said. “They loved our country. They sacrificed, they sacrificed it all, and these people have sacrificed at all. They’ve been through hell. We love you. Thank you very much. Thank you.”

Other flags on display for the night’s celebration included one of the first flags to be carried as the fledgling U.S. sought to expand its borders towards the west: one from the famous Lewis and Clark expedition from 1803. In addition to the first flag to fly over the Brooklyn Bridge in New York was the banner which flew atop the U.S. Navy’s flagship after sinking the Spanish fleet to the bottom of Manila Bay in the Phillipines during a May 1, 1898 battle of the Spanish-American War.

Drawing especially enthusiastic support was Ken Schubring, a 103-year-old World War II veteran who saluted the flag recovered from the U.S.S. Arizona — “a symbol of American defiance” — which was sunk during the Japanese attack on Pear Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Schubring, then 19 years old, was serving as an airplane mechanic at Wheeler Field, Oahu, Hawaii and resolved to strike back. He made good on his ambitions to fly B-29 bombers in the Pacific theater, serving from the war’s first day to its last.

Saluting one of the most iconic flags in American history, the one famously raised on Feb. 23, 1945, during the Battle of Iwo Jima, was 101-year-old Marine Corporal Don Graves, one of the last survivors of that brutal Feb. 19 – March 26 amphibious assault.

Likewise, the American flag which flew atop the first landing craft of the Allies’ D-Day invasion of Normandy was saluted by 107-year-old Navy Lieutenant Arthur Rose, “who commanded 36 landing craft as part of the largest naval armada in history.”

Trump then recalled a story of a mother and daughter in Nazi-occuppied Belgium stitching together a homemade American flag as a plea for liberation in 1944. On the day they were freed, they gifted the flag to an American soldier who’s grandfather was the famous Francis Scott Key, who authored “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the U.S. National anthem. Present decades later to salute the flag was the next generation of the Key family, including Major Kyle Key, an Army veteran of 23 years.

Trump then turned to another battle against a threat to America’s founding principles of freedom and self-determination: communism.

“Ever since, the entire world has been on notice that Americans will never let anyone take our freedom away — won’t happen,” he declared. “America will never be a communist country — won’t happen. Communism is a loser, and it always will be. The communist system is the opposite of the American system, and the communist system has never worked.”

“Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world, only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America,” Trump continued. “We’re not going to let it happen. We like to stop a threat like that immediately and before it begins. It’s like a cancer: you got to cut it out … fast.”

The president also championed flags from America’s technological advancement, from the first flight to ambitions to set foot upon Mars. Joining the crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission, which carried four astronauts farther away from the Earth than any other attempt, was Apollo 17 astronaut Jack Schmitt. Schmitt, who had just reached 91 of age on July 3, was the twelfth and final person to walk on the Moon during the Apollo 17 mission in December 1972.

These pioneers saluted the flag flown on the Wright brothers’ airplane which marked the beginning of air travel, piloted by Orville Wright on Dec. 17, 1903. Trump then revealed the flag which would be brought upon the planned Artemis IV mission to return Americans to the lunar surface was also on display, having been flown atop the U.S. Capitol earlier that day.

“Americans must never forget that we are a historic and heroic people, with a heroic spirit and a heroic purpose on this beautiful earth of ours,” Trump declared. “We are made the courage and the fire and the flesh and the blood of the best and the bravest people this world has ever produced. We are the bravest and the best. Tonight we pledge allegiance to the flag they gave us. And we say, ‘God bless the immortal patriots of 1776,’ and ‘Long live the cause of independence!’ May it reign forever and ever and ever.”

“At 250 years old, we may be the oldest constitutional republic on earth, but our country is just getting started because the best is yet to come, he added. “This is only the dawn of the golden Age of America.”

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.