Lockard writes regularly for The Courier and has published several short stories and poetry.
In history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial, 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Sun in 1897, asking for a definitive answer as to whether there is a Santa Claus. While Virginia’s letter questioned the existence of a mythical figure, it showed more political acumen than a thousand politicians and analysts could spew out. It has to do with the spirit of humanity and, when applied to our country, the spirit of our nation.
So let me offer a modified response: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. And yes, Virginia – and our other 49 states –there is a United States of America.”
Of course, there are ample issues for disagreement and dissension in the United States, often intensified by a political system embracing extremes. Human rights issues, racial equality, gun legislation or the lack thereof, abortion, how our children are taught, even how we define an individual – all fodder for argument. Families not speaking, friends on the outs, right’s violations and accusations, injustice. Not to mention controversial or bungled alarms raising more questions about our country’s leadership role in the world. The left going further to the left, the right veering further right. And every person absolutely believing he or she, or they, are right! We have all been affected by the “skepticism of a skeptical age.” (To quote from the Sun’s response to Virginia.)
Santa Claus and the United States have much more in common than at first glance. That “jolly old elf” and our nation both started as a dream, the embodiment of an idea. And both are sustained by that dream. They may have morphed into skinny mall Santa or been corrupted by contentious claims of “this land is my land and only mine,” but both exist through belief. As Virginia wondered about Santa over a century ago, this holiday season many are wondering about our country. But the core of the United States is much more intangible than its Constitution and laws. Its strength is the underlying belief in it, and that requires defending.
We all love stories. It is the real “story behind the story” when we immerse ourselves in the power of belief. So, who brings the gifts?
Is it not more important to recognize them? And not just our own gifts, but the whole array our families and communities possess through our citizenship? How much better to abide by that most old-fashioned of sentiments and believe we are “blessed” to live in this country.
Santa Claus and our nation have also this in common:. No matter how many letters we send to the North Pole or how many expletives we spew about what is wrong with the country, neither will act as “Amazon’s Wish Fulfillment Center” on steroids. Getting everything we want under the tree is impossible, as impossible as pleasing all of the people all of the time in our vast and diverse country.
Francis Pharcellus Church, the veteran newsman at the “Sun” who answered Virginia’s letter, wrote: “[T]here is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man ... could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance ... push aside that curtain ... to the beauty and glory beyond.”
Don’t we all love patriotic anthems and holiday carols for their hopeful message of belief in something bigger, whether it is our country or Santa Claus or God? The strength of our nation is not embodied in its headlines and “breaking news.” It is in the hearts of its people. Which is exactly what Church wrote, assuring Virginia of the truth of her belief: “In all this world there is nothing else so real and abiding.”
What’s wrong with the United States? Plenty.
But what’s right with it? Plenty more.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers a keynote speech at the 62nd Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026, in Munich, Germany.
Marco Rubio is the only adult left in the room
Finally free from the demands of being chief archivist of the United States, secretary of state, national security adviser and unofficial viceroy of Venezuela, Marco Rubio made his way to the Munich Security Conference last weekend to deliver a major address.
I shouldn’t make fun. Rubio, unlike so many major figures in this administration, is a bona fide serious person. Indeed, that’s why President Trump keeps piling responsibilities on him. Rubio knows what he’s talking about and cares about policy. He is hardly a free agent; Trump is still president after all. But in an administration full of people willing to act like social media trolls, Rubio stands out for being serious. And I welcome that.
But just because Rubio made a serious argument, that doesn’t mean it was wholly persuasive. Part of his goal was to repair some of the damage done by his boss, who not long ago threatened to blow up the North Atlantic alliance by snatching Greenland away from Denmark. Rubio’s conciliatory language was welcome, but it hardly set things right.
Whether it was his intent or not, Rubio had more success in offering a contrast with Vice President JD Vance, who used the Munich conference last year as a platform to insult allies and provide fan service to his followers on X. Rubio’s speech was the one Vance should have given, if the goal was to offer a serious argument about Trump’s “vision” for the Western alliance. I put “vision” in scare quotes because it’s unclear to me that Trump actually has one, but the broader MAGA crowd is desperate to construct a coherent theory of their case.
So what’s that case? That Western Civilization is a real thing, America is not only part of it but also its leader, and it will do the hard things required to fix it.
In Rubio’s story, America and Europe embraced policies in the 1990s that amounted to the “managed decline” of the West. European governments were free riders on America’s military might and allowed their defense capabilities to atrophy as they funded bloated welfare states and inefficient regulatory regimes. Free trade, mass migration and an infatuation with “the rules-based global order” eroded national sovereignty, undermined the “cohesion of our societies” and fueled the “de-industrialization” of our economies. The remedy for these things? Reversing course on those policies and embracing the hard reality that strength and power drive events on the global stage.
“The fundamental question we must answer at the outset is what exactly are we defending,” Rubio said, “because armies do not fight for abstractions. Armies fight for a people; armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life.”
I agree with some of this — to a point. And, honestly, given how refreshing it is to hear a grown-up argument from this administration, it feels churlish to quibble.
But, for starters, the simple fact is that Western Civilization is an abstraction, and so are nations and peoples. And that’s fine. Abstractions — like love, patriotism, moral principles, justice — are really important. Our “way of life” is largely defined and understood through abstractions: freedom, the American dream, democracy, etc. What is the “Great” in Make America Great Again, if not an abstraction?
This is important because the administration’s defenders ridicule or dismiss any principled objection critics raise as fastidious gitchy-goo eggheadery. Trump tramples the rule of law, pardons cronies, tries to steal an election and violates free market principles willy-nilly. And if you complain, it’s because you’re a goody-goody fool.
As White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said not long ago, “we live in a world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.” Rubio said it better, but it’s the same idea.
There are other problems with Rubio’s story. At the start of the 1990s, the EU’s economy was 9% bigger than ours. In 2025 we were nearly twice as rich as Europe. If Europe was “ripping us off,” they have a funny way of showing it. America hasn’t “deindustrialized.” The manufacturing sector has grown during all of this decline, though not as much as the service sector, where we are a behemoth. We have shed manufacturing jobs, but that has more to do with automation than immigration. Moreover, the trends Rubio describes are not unique to America. Manufacturing tends to shrink as countries get richer.
That’s an important point because Rubio, like his boss, blames all of our economic problems on bad politicians and pretends that good politicians can fix them through sheer force of will.
I think Rubio is wrong, but I salute him for making his case seriously.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.