Month: June 2026

Patriotism Belongs to All of Us

On By TonyIn History, PoliticsLeave a comment

For too long, Democrats, independents, democratic socialists, and anyone who believes in an inclusive America have surrendered one of the most powerful words in our language: patriotism.

It’s time to take it back.

Somewhere along the way, a political movement convinced millions of Americans that waving the flag, wearing red, white, and blue, and proclaiming love of country belonged exclusively to one side of the political spectrum. It doesn’t. It never did.

I refuse to surrender the American flag to a movement that too often uses it as a prop rather than a promise.

Because when I look at that flag, I don’t see one man. I don’t see one political party. I don’t see one religion or one race or one ideology.

I see the first three words of our Constitution:

We the People.

Not “We the Republicans.”

Not “We the Democrats.”

Not “We the MAGA faithful.”

We the People.

That simple phrase is perhaps the most radical democratic idea ever written. It says that this nation belongs to all of us, not just those who agree with whoever occupies the White House.

Real patriotism isn’t measured by how loudly you chant “USA.”

It’s measured by whether you believe every American deserves the same rights, the same opportunities, and the same dignity.

That is why I reject the idea that progressive values are somehow “un-American.”

Public education? That’s patriotism. An educated citizenry is the backbone of a democracy.

Scientific research? Patriotism. America led the world because we invested in knowledge.

Protecting our national parks? Patriotism. We preserve what previous generations entrusted to us.

Supporting veterans after they return home? Patriotism.

Standing up for workers? Patriotism.

Protecting Social Security and Medicare? Patriotism.

Defending the right to vote? Patriotism.

Welcoming immigrants who believe in the American dream? Patriotism. Unless your family descends from Native Americans, your story began with someone who came here seeking something better.

Standing up for the rule of law—even when it is politically inconvenient? That is patriotism.

Supporting a free press that can challenge those in power? Patriotism.

Defending the Constitution rather than demanding loyalty to a single individual? That may be the highest form of patriotism there is.

By contrast, I struggle to understand how demanding unquestioning loyalty to one political leader can be described as patriotic.

Patriotism isn’t blind obedience.

It isn’t pretending elections only count when your side wins.

It isn’t attacking judges because they rule against you.

It isn’t dismissing the Constitution when it becomes inconvenient.

It isn’t threatening political opponents or journalists.

It certainly isn’t redefining loyalty to America as loyalty to one man.

A republic survives only when its citizens remain loyal to the principles that created it—not to personalities.

This country has never been perfect. It wasn’t perfect in 1776. It wasn’t perfect during the Civil War. It wasn’t perfect during Jim Crow. It wasn’t perfect when women couldn’t vote. It wasn’t perfect when LGBTQ Americans were denied equal rights.

But generation after generation, Americans expanded the promise of “We the People.”

That is the American story.

Not perfection.

Progress.

Not exclusion.

Expansion.

Not fear.

Hope.

As a city councilor, as a business owner, as a coach who has represented this country overseas, I’ve often been asked what makes America special.

It isn’t that we’re flawless.

It’s that we have always aspired to become better than we were yesterday.

That aspiration belongs to Lincoln.

To Roosevelt.

To Eisenhower.

To Kennedy.

To King.

To every soldier who defended our Constitution.

To every teacher who opens a classroom door.

To every volunteer who serves a meal.

To every citizen who votes.

Patriotism isn’t ownership.

It’s stewardship.

So here’s my challenge to everyone who shares progressive values.

Stop apologizing for loving your country.

Fly the flag.

Stand for the anthem if you choose.

Celebrate Independence Day.

Teach your children American history—all of it, the triumphs and the failures—because loving your country enough to tell the truth about it is more patriotic than pretending it has never made mistakes.

Do not let anyone tell you that compassion is weakness.

That inclusion is un-American.

That democracy is optional.

Or that patriotism belongs exclusively to one movement.

It doesn’t.

The American flag belongs to every citizen.

And every time I see it, I want to be reminded of those three extraordinary words that define who we are and who we are still striving to become:

We the People.

That flag should never stand for one man.

It should always stand for all of us.

Podcast Episode: America at 250

On By TonyIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Pip: Tony Retrosi is writing from Iceland, which feels about right for the vantage point this episode requires.

Mara: He's looking back at two hundred and fifty years of American history — what the country built, what it chose, and what it put on the White House lawn to mark the occasion. Let's start with the anniversary itself.

America at 250

Pip: The premise here is simple and brutal: a quarter-millennium of unmatched power and resources, and the question is what we actually have to show for it.

Mara: The post opens with a quote from Oliver Kornetzke that sets the frame, and then the piece itself extends that frame into a list. Here it is: "250 years. Two hundred and fifty fucking years of the most powerful, most resourced, most theoretically capable nation in the history of human civilization and here is what we have to show for it."

Pip: And what follows is the accounting — forty million on food stamps, thirty million without health insurance, the highest incarceration rate on earth, an opioid crisis past half a million dead, infrastructure collapsing, life expectancy going backward.

Mara: The list runs long deliberately. The point is accumulation — that no single failure is an accident when they all arrive together, sustained across decades, across administrations, across every available opportunity to choose differently.

Pip: And then the anniversary gift itself arrives: a wrestling arena on the White House lawn. Not a hospital. Not a school. A wrestling arena with cranes and pyrotechnics.

Mara: The post is direct about what that means. "Truthfully, this is not a departure from American values. This is the fullest possible expression of them. Because this is what we chose. Every single time the choice was presented."

Pip: That's the turn the whole piece hinges on — not outrage at a single bad decision, but the argument that the decision is consistent. The football coach making forty times what the physics professor makes. The Nobel laureate's school getting a budget cut while the state championship school gets a parade.

Mara: The military spending section makes the same case in harder numbers: more spent on defense than the next ten countries combined, while veterans sleep on the streets of the cities they returned to.

Pip: Rome had bread and circuses. The post's version lands a little differently.

Mara: "Rome had bread and circuses. We Americans have food stamps and a wrestling ring outside the Oval Office." That's the closing image, and it earns its place.

Pip: Two hundred and fifty years is a long time to confuse the noise you make with the work you never did.

Mara: The question the post leaves open is whether naming it clearly is the first step toward something else. We'll see what comes next.

Watergate vs. Today’s Political Climate

On By TonyIn Belief, Elections, History, PoliticsLeave a comment

When Watergate Looks Cute

Yesterday I flew back from a work trip in Iceland.

One of the interesting things about traveling internationally is that people inevitably ask questions about America. They ask about our politics, our economy, our culture, and increasingly, Donald Trump. This wasn’t the first time I’ve found myself trying to explain the Trump administration to people overseas, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

The question is usually some variation of the same thing:

“How can Americans allow this to happen?”

It’s a fair question.

The uncomfortable answer is that many Americans aren’t allowing it. Millions of us have voted against it repeatedly. Millions more have protested it, written about it, organized against it, and warned about it. But our system was designed with checks and balances that require institutions to do their jobs.

Right now, Congress largely isn’t.

The founders envisioned Congress as a co-equal branch of government capable of checking presidential power. Instead, it has become increasingly polarized, increasingly dysfunctional, and increasingly unwilling to challenge presidents from its own party.

The growth of executive power didn’t start with Donald Trump. Every administration since Reagan has expanded the authority of the presidency in one way or another. Democrats did it. Republicans did it. Congress often stood by and watched.

Trump simply took that trend and put it on steroids. Like everything he does, he turned it up to 11.

On the flight home, I was looking for something to have on as background noise while finishing some work on my laptop. I settled on All the President’s Men, the classic film about the Watergate scandal.

Movie poster for 'All The President's Men' featuring two men in suits looking serious, with a background of newspaper text.

I hadn’t seen it in more than a decade. As the movie played, I found myself thinking something I never expected to think: Watergate almost looked cute.

Not because it wasn’t serious. It was. Nixon’s operatives infiltrated the Democratic Party, engaged in political espionage, and attempted to manipulate an election. The cover-up ultimately brought down a president.

At the time, Americans were horrified.

Republicans and Democrats alike eventually concluded that what Nixon had done was unacceptable. Members of his own party confronted him. The institutions worked. The rule of law prevailed.

Front page of The Washington Post from June 19, 1972, featuring headlines about the Watergate scandal, including 'GOP Security Aide Among 5 Arrested In Bugging Affair' and 'FBI Finds Nixon Aides Sabotaged Democrats'.

Now compare that to where we are today.

A sitting president lost an election and spent months spreading lies about voter fraud. Those lies culminated in a violent attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. A mob assaulted police officers, smashed windows, hunted elected officials, and attempted to stop the peaceful transfer of power that has defined American democracy for nearly 250 years.

A large crowd of protesters gathering outside a building, some holding flags, while smoke fills the air and police are present on the upper levels.
FILE PHOTO: Police release tear gas into a crowd of pro-Trump protesters during clashes at a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the U.S. Congress, at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S, January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo

Think about that for a moment.

Watergate involved burglars breaking into an office building. January 6 involved thousands of people attacking the Capitol itself!

Yet somehow, in today’s political environment, the latter is treated by many as a partisan disagreement rather than an assault on democracy.

Many participants were investigated, prosecuted, and convicted. Then Trump returned to office and pardoned them! That is INSANE! Not just because I do not agree with it. BUT A SITTING PRESIDENT WHO TALKED ABOUT LAND AND ORDER PARDONED PEOPLE WHO ASSAULTED POLICE OFFICERS. Now Trump and his allies have even discussed mechanisms to compensate participants for what they describe as unjust prosecutions.

You can’t justify that to your neighbor here. Can you imagine explaining that to someone in Iceland? How can the generation who lived through Watergate explain it to themselves?

The alarming reality is that the scandal that brought down Nixon would barely survive a single news cycle today. I find that terrifying.

The corruption isn’t just the actions themselves. It is the normalization of behavior that previous generations would have found unthinkable.

  • Conflicts of interest that would have triggered investigations are now shrugged off.
  • Attempts to pressure institutions are dismissed as politics.
  • Open attacks on judges, prosecutors, journalists, and civil servants have become routine.
  • The outrage has been exhausted.
  • The public has become numb.

That may be Trump’s greatest achievement—not convincing Americans that corruption is acceptable, but convincing many that it is inevitable.

I don’t believe that. I cannot accept that.

I still believe most Americans, regardless of party, want honest government. I still believe most Americans value the Constitution more than any politician. I still believe most Americans understand that loyalty to a country must always come before loyalty to a leader.

But belief isn’t enough.

The institutions that protect democracy only work when the people inside them have the courage to defend them.

Congress was designed to be one of those institutions.

Right now, it is failing that test. And until it finds the courage to act like a co-equal branch of government again, Americans will continue finding themselves overseas, trying to explain the unexplainable.

Trying to answer a question that becomes harder every day:

How did we get to the point where Watergate looks small?

More importantly, what are we going to do about it?

Congress must start acting like an independent branch of government again, not a cheering section for whichever party happens to hold power. Lawmakers of both parties need to remember that their oath is to the Constitution, not to a president, a party leader, or a political movement. Oversight is not optional. Accountability is not partisan. Defending democratic institutions is the job they were elected to do.

And for the rest of us, the responsibility is just as real.

We cannot afford to reward cowardice. We cannot keep sending politicians back to Washington who remain silent when principles are tested. Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Independent, or something else entirely, demand more from the people who ask for your vote.

Vote for people with the backbone to tell their own side when it is wrong. Vote for people who will defend the rule of law even when it is politically inconvenient. Vote for people who put country before party and Constitution before career.

Because if enough Americans do that, then maybe someday the question people ask overseas will change.

Instead of asking how Americans allowed this to happen, they might ask how Americans found the courage to stop it.

The growing concentration of power in the presidency will not be solved by the White House alone—it requires Congress to step up and fulfill its constitutional responsibilities. This fall, voters have an opportunity to demand that change. If you are unhappy with the direction of the country, make your voice heard at the ballot box. As I travel, I find myself increasingly frustrated trying to explain the state of American politics. I remember when conversations about the United States centered on its innovation, opportunity, and democratic ideals. Today, too often, those discussions are overshadowed by concerns about political dysfunction, corruption, and a government that seems unable or unwilling to address the challenges facing the nation.

And – NO. I am not running for anything.

Smiling man in a blue blazer and white shirt seated, with a dark background.

America at 250

On By TonyIn economy, Education, History, PoliticsLeave a comment

My work has me traveling to other countries quite frequently (I am actually writing this from Iceland). I am proud to be an American, but it has become harder and harder to explain where we are at.

I have never read a more brutally honest assessment of who we are and what we’ve become.

OLIVER KORNETZKE

250 years. Two hundred and fifty fucking years of the most powerful, most resourced, most theoretically capable nation in the history of human civilization and here is what we have to show for it.

Forty million people on food stamps, thirty million without health insurance, the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world, the highest incarceration rate on earth, an opioid crisis that has killed over half a million people and counting, a housing market so broken that working people cannot afford to live in the cities they work in, an education system that buries young people in debt before they earn their first dollar, infrastructure that is literally collapsing, a life expectancy that is going backwards, a political system so thoroughly purchased by concentrated wealth that the laws it produces bear almost no relationship to what the public actually wants or needs, a working class that has not seen meaningful real wage growth in thirty years, a mental health crisis so severe we normalized it, a gun violence epidemic so routine we don’t even act when preschoolers are slaughtered, and a climate hurtling toward catastrophe while the people paid to address it collect checks from the industry causing it.

Two hundred and fifty years of that. And to celebrate, we built a wrestling arena on the White House lawn.

Not a hospital, or a school, or a housing development. Not a single fucking thing that addresses a single goddamn item on the list above. A wrestling arena. With cranes and pyrotechnics and a steel arch that probably cost more than the annual budget of three rural counties combined, erected in front of the building where Lincoln and Roosevelt and every president who ever tried to make any of this mean something once lived and worked and in some cases died trying.

Truthfully, this is not a departure from American values. This is the fullest possible expression of them. Because this is what we chose. Every single time the choice was presented.

We built a culture where a football coach makes forty times what a physics professor makes and then express genuine bewilderment at the outcomes. Where a reality television star becomes president and a school district cuts its art program in the same fiscal year. Where children know every statistic of every player on their favorite sport team and cannot locate their own country on a map. Where scientific consensus on vaccines, climate, evolution, and basic nutrition gets weighed against a Facebook post and the Facebook post wins at the dinner table. Where the school that wins the state championship gets a parade and the school that produces a Nobel laureate gets a budget cut.

We chose the bomber over the teacher. The tank over the clinic. The aircraft carrier over the water treatment plant. We spend more on military than the next ten countries combined, including our allies, while veterans sleep on the streets of the cities they came back to. We built the most expensive killing apparatus in human history and then told the nurse she made too much money. We sent young men to die in wars that made defense contractors rich and called it freedom and put a yellow ribbon magnet on the back of the car and called that support. We made the soldier and the police officer into sacred untouchable symbols of national identity and then cut their benefits, denied their PTSD claims, let them die waiting for VA appointments, and sent them back for third and fourth tours because it was cheaper than taking care of them when they came home. We worshipped the uniform and neglected the human inside it because the uniform is a symbol and symbols are cheaper than healthcare and housing and the therapy that would actually help. We built bases in a hundred and fifty countries and could not build enough affordable housing in fifty states. We funded a military budget that could have ended homelessness and medical debt and student debt several times over and we did it with bipartisan enthusiasm and called the people who questioned it unserious.

We chose entertainment over education so many times and for so long and at every available level of society that we forgot there was a distinction worth making. Spectacle over substance, performance over policy, the aesthetics of greatness in place of the actual thing, and the feeling of winning instead of asking what was being won and who was paying for it and what it would cost the people who came next.

Rome had bread and circuses. We Americans have food stamps and a wrestling ring outside the Oval Office.

250 years. This is what we built. This is what we chose. This is what we are celebrating. And the most perfectly, catastrophically, irreducibly American thing about all of it is that anyone pointing at this image and asking what it means will be called unpatriotic by people watching it on a television they bought on credit they cannot afford to pay back, rooting for a sport they cannot explain, in a country they cannot describe, celebrating a birthday they cannot contextualize, for a nation that has spent two and a half centuries confusing the noise it makes with the work it never did, all while claiming to be the greatest country on Earth.

Happy Birthday America! You have never looked more like yourself!

Citizenship Requires More Than Blind Loyalty

On By TonyIn Belief, economy, Education, Elections, PoliticsLeave a comment

Maybe It’s Not Trump Derangement Syndrome After All

Every time I criticize Donald Trump, someone inevitably tells me I suffer from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

The accusation usually goes something like this: “Why can’t you acknowledge the good things he’s done?”

Fair question.

As a business owner for more than three decades, a coach who has spent a lifetime teaching accountability, and a city councilor responsible for spending taxpayer dollars wisely, I believe in giving credit where credit is due. If someone does something well, I will say so. If a policy works, I will acknowledge it.

But leadership isn’t judged by a handful of talking points. It is judged by character, integrity, competence, and whether the person in charge is working for the people or for themselves.

That’s where my concerns begin.

Supporters often point to immigration enforcement, NATO spending, tariffs, or cultural issues as evidence of Trump’s success. We can have legitimate policy debates about any of those topics. Reasonable people can disagree.

What troubles me is something deeper.

It is the corruption.

It is the constant blurring of the line between public service and personal profit.

As a city councilor, if I voted on matters that directly enriched my business interests, people would rightly demand answers. If city contracts consistently benefited my friends, family, or financial partners, residents would be outraged. They should be.

The same standard should apply to the President of the United States.

Yet we have become numb to behavior that would be unacceptable from virtually any other elected official.

The Trump family has expanded its business interests while Trump occupies the Oval Office. Cryptocurrency ventures, real estate projects, private fundraising efforts, and relationships with wealthy donors all seem to intersect with public policy decisions in ways that should concern anyone who believes government should serve the public first.

This isn’t a Republican issue or a Democratic issue.

It’s an ethics issue.

It’s a leadership issue.

It’s an accountability issue.

What concerns me even more is the growing use of government power against perceived enemies. In America, we are supposed to settle political disagreements at the ballot box, not through investigations designed to intimidate critics or punish opponents.

One of the great strengths of our democracy has always been that no one is above the law—but equally important, no one should be beneath its protection.

The machinery of government should never become a personal weapon.

As a coach, I often tell athletes that character is revealed when nobody is watching.

As a businessman, I’ve learned that trust takes years to build and moments to destroy.

As a city councilor, I’ve learned that public confidence is fragile and must be earned every day.

Those same principles apply to presidents.

I understand why many Americans voted for Donald Trump. They were frustrated by rising costs, worried about immigration, concerned about national security, and convinced Washington wasn’t listening.

Those concerns are real.

But voting for someone to solve problems does not require blind loyalty.

In fact, patriotism demands the opposite.

We should expect results.

We should demand honesty.

We should insist on transparency.

And we should be willing to call out misconduct regardless of whether it comes from our political opponents or from people we supported.

That’s not Trump Derangement Syndrome.

That’s citizenship.

The real question isn’t why some of us continue to criticize Donald Trump.

The real question is why so many people have stopped holding him to the same standards they would apply to anyone else.

Last night, I attended the Dover High School graduation as a city councilor. As I watched those young men and women cross the stage, I found myself thinking less about today’s political battles and more about the world we are leaving them.

These graduates are entering adulthood at a time of declining trust in institutions, growing political division, and leaders too often focused on winning arguments instead of solving problems. Yet I left hopeful. Every generation inherits challenges. Mine inherited the Cold War, economic uncertainty, and environmental concerns. Today’s graduates face different problems, but they possess the same capacity for innovation, courage, and change.

What struck me most was that the future belongs to them, not the politicians dominating today’s headlines. They will be the entrepreneurs creating jobs, the teachers inspiring children, the healthcare workers saving lives, the public servants strengthening communities, and the citizens shaping America’s future.

That reality places a responsibility on us. We should model integrity, accountability, and respect for democratic institutions. We should show that public service is about serving others, not ourselves, and leave behind examples worth following.

Someday these graduates will sit in city council chambers, state legislatures, corporate boardrooms, and perhaps even the halls of Congress. The question is whether we are giving them a model of leadership worth inheriting.