The Dawn Of A New America

Manifest Destiny is a concept that hasn’t been explicitly invoked by an American president in a very long time. It’s the idea that Americans have a divine mandate to conquer, to expand, to reach out across vast expanses. If James Polk hadn’t embraced Manifest Destiny in the middle of the 19th century, there’s a very good chance that America wouldn’t look anything like what it does today. We wouldn’t have states like California, Utah, Oregon, Washington and many more. Our country never would have gained access to the Pacific. We would have established no foothold west of the Mississippi at all. Foreign powers would have retained control over wide swaths of the North American continent. We would be a much smaller, much weaker nation today. So small and weak that, by now, we may not even be a nation at all.

We wouldn’t have experienced the unprecedented economic and technological growth that we did in the 19th and 20th centuries — growth that ensured America would become the world’s greatest superpower. As part of our journey to the West, we developed everything from new farming techniques to the telegraph system to the transcontinental railroad. This was a period of extraordinary expansion in every sense, made possible by Americans’ belief in God and His will and His calling on our lives. And yet, until yesterday, no modern American president wanted to talk about it. Manifest Destiny has somehow become a point of embarrassment. The pioneer spirit was extinguished, in favor of a spirit of weakness and shame.

But Donald Trump wants to change that. It was one of the major themes of his inaugural address. What made his address so brilliant is that he talked about all of the practical things that we need to do as a country to get to a point where we can thrive and succeed again. But he also, at the same time, took a larger, grander view. He talked about the sweeping vision of things, along with the practical. And as for sweeping visions, that’s what Manifest Destiny is all about.

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Trump wasn’t paralyzed or guilt ridden by it. He wasn’t focused on the plight of so-called “indigenous people.” He didn’t make any apologies for this country, or the people living here, or our history. Instead, he affirmed that God wants this country to succeed and grow and flourish. He also affirmed that America was a great country when it had the will and desire to explore, expand, and conquer — and that we need to return to those principles. And then Trump explained what exactly that will look like, in the modern context. Watch:

In the past century, American presidents simply haven’t talked like this. Barack Obama, for example, claimed we had “duties to the world,” including what he called “the Muslim world.” Joe Biden fear-mongered about “democracy” and COVID, which he claimed (falsely) had taken more lives than World War II.

In fact, even if you go back and watch Trump’s first inaugural address, back in 2017, you won’t find rhetoric about America’s divine mandate to grow, expand, and flourish. Instead, the theme of Trump’s first address was about more immediate concerns — specifically, restoring American manufacturing, ending wasteful commitments to foreign governments, and securing the border.

This is what Trump referred to as the “America First” platform. The plan, at the time, was to shore up America’s failing infrastructure, and restore the government to the people. It was a necessary plan that was intended to stop what Trump called the ongoing “American carnage.” But it was also a plan that signaled that, after eight years of rule by Barack Obama, America needed emergency repairs. We weren’t in a position to conquer or explore. There are still many repairs to be made. But now we can go beyond that as well.

In 2025, for his second administration, Trump has made it clear that, this time around, the goal is bigger. Now his administration intends to expand American influence and usher in a new Golden Age — an era of historic economic and technological progress. As Trump went on to explain, there’s never been a better time in modern history for a president to call for something like this. Trump now has the full backing of some of the smartest people in the country, including actual innovators like Elon Musk.

And perhaps more to the point, Trump himself just achieved what many considered impossible. He became president for a second time, despite the efforts of every power center on the planet to stop him. At one point in his speech, Trump made it clear that he believes he’s only alive today because of divine intervention. Inspired by his near-death experience, he’s now committed to reviving Manifest Destiny — a desire to explore and conquer that has defined Americans since our country was founded. Watch:

 

Within hours of his speech, Trump took nearly 200 executive actions to put these principles in action, and restore America’s sovereignty. (And in between each one, he talked to reporters at length, which is something Joe Biden obviously would be incapable of doing.) Trump opened up oil and gas exploration in Alaska, which the Biden administration had shut down. In fact, he permitted drilling across much of the coastal United States. This is a whole frontier that was closed to the American economy solely for superstitious, ideological reasons. And now it’s open.

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More symbolically, Trump also reinstated the name “Mount McKinley” and changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Mount McKinley in Alaska had been named Mount McKinley for over a century, until the Obama administration changed it to Denali, which is supposedly the “indigenous” name for it. But the mountain is ours. It belongs to us. It is American, in America. We have the right to name it. The “indigenous” people do not. They never even developed a written language, so whatever they called the mountain a thousand years ago is unknown to us and them. We are far more advanced. We conquered this country. It’s our mountain. We name it. That is Trump’s attitude, and it’s the right one.

Trump also pardoned roughly 1,500 January 6 defendants who were prosecuted for political reasons, which is a major step towards restoring Americans’ First Amendment right to peacefully protest. He signed an order to make federal architecture more aesthetically appealing, in order to inspire future generations. Which is what great architecture is meant to do. Additionally, Trump withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization, which worked with China to cover-up the origins of COVID, a decision that led to years of suffering and lockdowns in this country.

Crucially, Trump also ended birthright citizenship for illegal aliens, which is maybe the single most important step he could take, when it comes to fulfilling this country’s Manifest Destiny. After all, we can’t explore and conquer the world, if we’re being conquered ourselves. Watch:

This is a move that’s obviously going to be challenged in the courts, as Trump went on to acknowledge. Democrats believe — whether correctly or not — that the key to their political power is importing illegal aliens, because most of those illegal aliens will eventually have children. And then those children become American citizens, and can vote in future elections. So Democrats are going to fight very hard to make sure that this executive order is overturned.

It’s not clear at the moment if they’ll win. There’s no Supreme Court case that’s ever directly addressed this particular issue. But it’s clear that birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens is one of the most destructive policies that’s ever been implemented in this country. It gives a massive incentive for foreign nationals to flood across the border, and fundamentally reshape this country.

But Trump isn’t just relying on this one executive order. He’s also already fired the people who are responsible for the fraudulent asylum process in this country, which is a major loophole that illegal aliens have been exploiting. Asylum, as you may know, is intended for people who are facing very extreme and very specific cases of persecution. But in recent years, the government has been allowing anyone with a fake asylum claim to stay in the country. Asylum went from something meant for people facing political persecution, to something for people who just happen to want to come into the country.

Just to give you some perspective on the numbers: According to DHS, “Affirmative asylum case filings … nearly doubled from 241,280 applications in 2022 to 456,750 in 2023, the highest number on record.” So this is a massive increase. And almost every single one of these claims is fraudulent. But these people are being allowed into the country, while their fake claim is “adjudicated” — a process that can take years. And of course, they often don’t show up for their hearings. So they’re essentially given a free pass into the country.

That’s all about to change. The New York Times reported with shock and horror on the changes that have already been made to the asylum system, on day-one of the second Trump administration: “The acting head of the U.S. immigration court system and three other top officials were fired on Monday soon after President Trump took office. … The abrupt removals signaled that the Trump administration wants to remake the immigration court system, which is housed under the Justice Department, as part of a broader immigration crackdown that Mr. Trump began within minutes of being sworn in for his second term. Immigration judges oversee an essential part of the system: granting asylum to migrants whose claims pass muster and ordering the deportation of those whose cases do not.”

These are people who obviously should’ve been fired a long time ago. Now that’s finally happening. 

And again, Trump’s not stopping there. He also declared that foreign drug cartels are terrorist organizations — and he didn’t foreclose the possibility of going into Mexico and taking them out. Watch:

This is what Manifest Destiny looks like, in practice. If people are going to cause problems for us, we can go out and get them. If there’s territory that’s valuable to us — like the Panama Canal — we can take it. If there’s a planet that could ensure the survival of the human race one day— like Mars — then we’ll colonize it. That was maybe my favorite part of his speech, when he declared that America will plant a flag on Mars. That really matters. Not just to ensure humanity’s survival. I have no idea whether Mars will ever be actually colonized. Elon Musk thinks so, and he knows a lot more about this stuff than you or I do. But regardless of that, planting our flag on another planet would be the greatest achievement in this entire history of mankind. We should strive for that achievement simply for its own sake. Because great countries do great things. And because we as a people, as a nation, need a moment of collective triumph like that. We haven’t had one in many many years.

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In other words, it’s clear from his first day in office that Trump is focused both on the practical issues and on the big picture. It’s difficult for a leader to do both of those things. Joe Biden, of course, did neither. It wasn’t even clear who was running the country for the last four years. But that’s all changed now. If Trump can keep up this level of focus and momentum through all four years, this has a chance to be one of the great presidential terms in American history. Trump has embraced an ideology that’s rooted in confidence — one that all successful and high-functioning countries embrace. He is openly promoting the promise of Manifest Destiny, which no president has done since James Polk. And now, armed with the lessons he learned from his previous four years in office, the chances seem pretty high that Trump will make good on that promise.

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