Don’t Count America Out Just Yet
A Message from a Naturalized American
Every year around the Fourth of July, I find myself reflecting not only on what America is, but on what so many people suddenly believe it has become.
Over the past several years, I’ve heard the same conclusion repeated in different countries, different languages, and from people across the political spectrum: America is in decline. Its institutions no longer work. Its democracy is broken. Perhaps it’s time for the world to look elsewhere—to China, to Europe, or to some other model—as the new standard.
As a naturalized American who chose this country, I believe that conclusion is premature.
America is living through a difficult chapter. Political polarization is real. Public trust has eroded. Government often appears unable—or unwilling—to solve problems that matter most to ordinary citizens. None of that should be dismissed.
But a difficult chapter is not the entire book.
The United States has spent nearly 250 years building something remarkable: a constitutional republic designed not around perfect leaders, but around imperfect people constrained by enduring institutions. That distinction matters.
The Constitution itself is not what has failed.
What fails—repeatedly, throughout history—is accountability.
No document, no matter how well written, can compensate for citizens who stop paying attention or leaders who stop honoring the limits placed upon them. Constitutions don’t enforce themselves. Laws don’t defend themselves. Institutions survive only when people insist they remain worthy of public trust.
That lesson extends far beyond the United States.
Countries should absolutely study America’s current struggles. They should examine political polarization, institutional gridlock, media fragmentation, and declining public confidence. Those are valuable lessons.
But they should study them as warnings—not as proof that constitutional democracy has failed.
History has a way of moving in cycles.
As someone born in Brazil, I often recognize political patterns there that resemble debates America experienced years earlier. Democracies frequently confront similar challenges at different moments in time. The answer isn’t to abandon the principles that created stability. The answer is to strengthen the accountability that protects them.
The temptation during turbulent times is always the same: to believe that whichever system appears strongest today must therefore be superior tomorrow.
History rarely rewards that kind of thinking.
Strong economies rise and fall. Political systems gain and lose influence. Great powers experience periods of confidence and periods of uncertainty. What often determines long-term success isn’t avoiding crisis—it’s possessing institutions capable of correcting course.
That remains America’s greatest advantage.
The American experiment has never depended on perfection. It has depended on correction.
The Constitution wasn’t written because the founders believed government would always function well. It was written because they assumed it sometimes wouldn’t. Checks and balances, divided powers, federalism, and the rule of law exist precisely because human beings are imperfect.
The challenge today isn’t replacing those principles.
The challenge is demanding that they be honored.
Accountability is the cure. A lack of accountability is the cancer—regardless of ideology, political party, or nation.
So this Independence Day, rather than declaring the American experiment finished, perhaps we should remember what has allowed it to endure for nearly two and a half centuries.
Don’t count America out just yet.
Learn from this chapter.
Strengthen the institutions that demand accountability.
A constitutional republic survives not because its founding documents are perfect, but because each generation chooses to defend the principles they represent.
