Viral Clip Has Americans Missing The OLD America

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]I told you at the very top we would get to the bsentennial and especially because I had this experience last night. One of the most moving things I got a little choked up about it uh relating to the semiquincentennial the 250th anniversary. I want to get to this clip that's going viral from 1976 spirit of 76 200 years of America making people conclude that the past is a distant and foreign country.

[00:00:30]This is a Coca-Cola ad from 76 >> and it's all these people bunting everywhere wearing Uncle Sam hats carrying Betsy Ross flag. Spirit of 76 everywhere.

[00:00:44]Got the drummer boys. Remember they actually in 76 they had the drummer boy quarters. Those are great. My Grammy used to collect those. All sorts of people smiling parades. Happy birthday America. Now, of course, look, this is a commercial. It's a commercial for a product, but it reflects one, consumer tastes because people there was obviously an appetite for this kind of patriotic stuff in ' 76. And there were a lot of parades and there there were a lot of festivities and the organizers of the semi-quincentennial are are doing a great job. As I mentioned, there's a lot of amazing stuff going up in Washington DC. A lot of great events. You know, there's the rededicate event that just occurred. Was that last week? rededicating America to God. And you know, there's there's there's good stuff going on, but there seems to be much less of a of an appetite among the people for this kind of patriotism.

[00:01:36]There there's a reason actually why clips from 50 years ago are going viral from the 200th anniversary rather than the 250th anniversary. There's a sense that things have gotten worse over the last 50 years. And I don't think there was really that sense in 1976.

[00:01:54]There were political problems, but people were still, I don't know, still patriotic, still excited about the founding of America and celebrating that. And the country has changed radically. Look, in part, we have the highest foreignb born percentage of the population that we've ever had. So, it's just people who know a lot less about our founding, who who have less of a civics education, who have less of a personal connection to the founding.

[00:02:16]John J writes in in Federalist 2, he thanks God that we all descend from a common stock with a common religion the and a common experience of of the war of the revolution and that has frayed over time not just because of the vicissitudes of the passage of time or something like that but also because of of policies that have changed the makeup of the country also because Americans don't really have kids anymore which is one of the arguments for mass migration also because of changes in the academy and in pop culture. that make us hate our country rather than celebrate our country. It's just it's not a good sign of national health. When on a big anniversary of the founding of your country, you are nostalgic for for the last anniversary. That's a sign that things have gotten worse. And so then it makes you think in the grand scope of history, America is still very, very young. We're 250 years old. I was having a cigar with my pal Spencer Claven the other night and he pointed out he said you know we are half the age of the Roman Republic.

[00:03:16]The Roman Republic lasted almost 500 years 486 or so years if memory serves.

[00:03:24]And then you got the Roman Empire.

[00:03:27]Maybe in modernity things go a little bit faster. I don't know. So may maybe we're on the cusp of something. Maybe maybe we are transforming from a republic or into an empire. Those kind of things happen gradually. Maybe we're more aware of that now. Maybe we're more more willing to transform. I don't know.

[00:03:42]I'm not saying America's going to disappear. I'm not saying it's going to go anywhere. But we need to uh come to grips with uh our national identity with who we are and we need to do so in a way that gives us a vision for the future. This is in fact at the change from the ro Roman Republic into the Roman Empire. This is the the point of Virgil's Aniid. Virgil Anid which is the great patriotic epic poem which was written for Caesar Augustus which is to draw from and and indeed to craft uh the mythology of Rome that would that would uh push Rome toward further greatness. We need something like that. We c nostalgia is history after a few drinks but we cannot simply look back and we can't sit in the present and be doomers and despair. We we are in desperate national need of a vision of the future that makes us love our country, not hate our country, that makes us hopeful, not despairing. We need we're we're at a we're at a tipping point. We're at we're at this this moment where the the old images, the old uh the old traditions, they're they've lost some of their luster. We have to we have to rejuvenate them. Go to hillsdale.edu/revolution.

[00:04:54]Folks, it took 36 years, but I'm finally in a movie in theaters with Tom Celich.

[00:04:59]It's pretty cool. And the subject is even cooler. How much are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness worth to you? This is the question America's founders had to answer. For more than 150 years, America's 13 colonies govern themselves until Britain declared they had no right to self-ruule. So, ordinary people had to make extraordinary choices and risk their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to fight for independence. Against all odds, they won. In victory, they built one of the most stable and lasting republics in history. Now, experience the American Revolution like never before, thanks to our friends at Hillsdale College.

[00:05:32]Revolutionary America, new documentary from Hillsdale Studios, narrated by Tom Celich, brings the founding of our nation to life through the voices of those who lived it alongside insights from leading scholars and commentators and also me. I love it. The trailer is absolutely killer. I care about this subject in obviously because I'm an American and also in part because two of my ancestors fought in the American Revolution and uh one of them the son Simon Nolles fought throughout the entire revolution largely under George Washington. Uh th this Revolutionary America movie really really brings it to life. It's just magnificent at a time when history is often distorted. Uh go check out What Really Happened Right now. You do not want to miss it. Go see this on the big screen. Go to hillsdale.edu/revolution.

[00:06:14]It's only in theaters May 31st through June 2nd. Hillsdale.edu/revolution.

[00:06:20]Find a local theater. Buy tickets now for Revolutionary America. One more time, hillsdale.edu/revolution.

[00:06:26]We get to my favorite time of the week when I get to hear from you in the mailbag. Our mailbag is sponsored by Pure Talk. Go to pure talk.com/nolles kwle to claim unlimited highspeed data for just $34.99. Take it away.

[00:06:37]>> Good morning, Michael. Fellow traditional Catholic here. I just wanted to say congratulations on baby number four. Unfortunately, I do feel the need to reprimand you for something. You talk a lot about how the words we use matter.

[00:06:47]I agree. So, I'm sorry to say that you've fallen into one of my greatest pet peeves. And since Matt didn't call you out on it during your episode of Off the Clock, I guess I have to. You've said multiple times now that you have three and a half children. No, you don't. You have four. It's like when I go to baby showers and the decorative banner says mama to be. No, there would be no baby shower without a baby. And if there's a baby, the woman is already a mother. It's the same thing. Having only half a baby is impossible. If we want to win on the abortion issue, why would we use the left's dehumanizing language?

[00:07:15]That seems pretty self-defeating to me.

[00:07:17]Your unborn daughter is a baby, a perfect, beautiful baby designed by God in his own image. Never speak of her or any potential future children as anything less. Please and thank you.

[00:07:26]Okay, end of rant. Have a nice day.

[00:07:28]>> Okay, that's a really, really good point and I'm not going to take your advice.

[00:07:33]It's a real I'm not denying the precision of your point, but I think your advice slashdemand is uh wrong.

[00:07:43]Here's why. You make a good point. You say something that's really annoying is when you go to a baby shower and it says mother to be. So, you're not a mother to be. You're a mother already. There's a baby inside you. And obviously, that's a that's a whole baby. So, you're already a mother. That's true. It is it is uh dehumanizing.

[00:07:59]It is, I think, rhetorically dangerous to say it's a a mother to be because you're you're a you're already a mother.

[00:08:05]That's true. But when I say that I have three and a half children, you know, three walking around the earth, one's still cooking in there. Uh it's just a joke. And it's not and it's not as dangerous as saying, you know, mother to be or to refer to a I don't know, a an embryo or a fetus or a zygote or whatever kind of euphemisms the the proabortion crowd tries to use. It's it's a joke because as you point out, you can't really have half a baby.

[00:08:33]That's not that's not a real thing. So, it's a joke. It's a little bit of verbal irony. And we are we are allowed to joke. It's actually good to joke. The angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. A little bit of levity goes a long way. And so, it's good to joke about these things. Uh you you don't want people to be confused.

[00:08:49]You want people to know that, you know, babies are babies. But uh joking about having half a baby actually I think actually kind of does that because we all know that would be an absurdity.

[00:08:59]There's no such thing as half a baby.

[00:09:01]And the proabortion crowd doesn't argue that a baby is half a baby. They argue that a baby is a total meaningless clump of cells or that you know it's some magical moment the baby fully becomes a baby. So no jokes are okay. Jokes are okay. That nihilt jokes are okay. It's okay to have some fun. We don't we don't need to frown all the time. We can make our important moral points while still having a little charm to it. It's all right. But your your point is very good, but not your advice. There's a great clip now. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

[00:09:39]You with me? Are we here together? It's just me and you, right? Close the door.

[00:09:45]Close the windows. Close the door. Lean in.

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