The failures of socialized medicine stem not from malice, but from inherent incentives: monopolistic structures, political allocation of resources, and suppressed innovation. 

Kevin Finn | May 26, 2026

I am regularly astonished at how many people — often younger folks — praise the supposed benefits of socialism and single‑payer health care. Despite extensive evidence to the contrary, and despite daily tragedies in systems that have adopted these models, the calls for more government intervention never seem to stop.

Socialized medicine, exemplified by Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), was founded on noble ideals: universal access to care “free at the point of use,” funded collectively as a national treasure. Yet the system now struggles with chronic shortages, soaring wait times, and structural failures that disproportionately harm the elderly and the disabled. Similar patterns are emerging in Canada with Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). These systems illustrate how government monopolies — despite high spending — often produce rationing, inefficiency, and desperation rather than dependable care.

Millions of people in England sit on waiting lists, including “unseen patients” referred by general practitioners (GPs) but never contacted for treatment. This is not a temporary post‑COVID anomaly; it is a systemic breakdown. Thousands wait more than 12 hours for emergency admission, and ambulance response times for strokes and heart attacks routinely exceed targets, contributing to rising excess deaths.

Elderly Britons are especially affected. Reports describe seniors feeling “fobbed off,” struggling to access GPs, facing canceled operations, and falling through gaps in social care. Surveys show that two‑thirds of people over 50 doubt the NHS can cope, and many express despair. Patients battle phone queues and online portals, often without ever seeing a doctor.

Backlogs also endanger older patients with sight‑threatening conditions such as macular degeneration or glaucoma. Many must wait months — or pay privately — to avoid permanent vision loss. Clinics reportedly prioritize simpler, better‑reimbursed cataract procedures, leaving complex cases to languish. One patient described waiting 16 weeks instead of the usual eight for essential injections.

The first objection from defenders of the NHS is almost always funding. Yet spending has risen dramatically for decades, now consuming roughly 43.1% of government expenditures on goods and services and growing faster than the economy on a per‑capita basis. Despite this, productivity lags, bed availability has fallen, and fewer patients are treated — largely due to bureaucracy and poor coordination with social care. One source states that, “If the NHS itself were a military, it would have the third-highest budget in the world, surpassed only by the U.S. and China.”

Social‑care bottlenecks worsen the crisis. Elderly patients who are medically ready for discharge often remain hospitalized for weeks because home‑care support is unavailable. This blocks beds, inflates costs, and strains staff. Care‑work wages are so low that retail jobs often pay more, leaving chronic vacancies in a rapidly aging society.

Canada’s experience with MAiD reveals different but related risks. Disability‑rights groups report disproportionate impacts: 42% of MAiD deaths from 2019–2023 involved people needing disability supports, and more than 1,000 never received those supports at all. In Ontario, disabled individuals were the most likely to die via MAiD, with nearly half citing loneliness or feeling like a burden. In another case, Canadian military veteran Christine Gauthier applied for a home chair lift from Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC). She claims they offered her MAiD instead.

In the United States, some Democrat‑led states required nursing homes to accept COVID‑positive patients, resulting in thousands of elderly deaths. While not an example of fully socialized medicine, these policies reflect centralized decision‑making that can prioritize political goals over vulnerable lives.

Ultimately, there are only two ways to allocate scarce resources: by time (rationing) or by price. In systems without profit motives or competition, incentives favor high‑volume, simple cases over complex elderly care. Aging populations increase demand for chronic and end‑of‑life services, but fixed budgets and political priorities lead to underinvestment in diagnostic equipment, beds, and staff. Public satisfaction with the NHS has fallen to historic lows — around 21% in some surveys — and the system underperforms peer nations in avoidable mortality and cancer survival.

Elderly patients, who have the least time to wait, bear the heaviest burden. They face worsening frailty, preventable blindness, untreated pain, and loss of dignity. Systems that promise “everything for free” often deliver long lines, denial of care, or — in extreme cases — pressure toward death. By contrast, countries that incorporate market‑oriented elements tend to show better responsiveness, more choice, and superior outcomes at similar spending levels.

The failures of socialized medicine stem not from malice, but from inherent incentives: monopolistic structures, political allocation of resources, and suppressed innovation. The elderly — who built these societies and rely on them most — pay the price in suffering, lost independence, and shortened lives.

Reform toward competition, patient empowerment, and realistic funding is essential if we hope to restore care worthy of the name.

American Thinker

Americans see through the smokescreen, and rendered their verdict in November 2024.

Jim Davis | May 25, 2026

The Democrats and the media (but I’m repeating myself) are profoundly dishonest, and there are a lot of “experts” they hire, with our tax dollars, who are even more dishonest.

I have degrees in statistical analysis and political science. I’m not an expert at anything, except research and eighth-grade math. But I’ve spotted a basic disconnect between the Democrats, common sense and the truth.

We had a president issue blanket pre-emptive pardons on his way out the door, to his entire family and his closest political allies, for crimes that nobody even knows about, that may or may not have been committed.

And for all the pardons except his son’s, there’s no indication that he even read them. He was hopelessly senile. A POC/LGBTQ committee, operating him like a Muppet every day for four years, signed those pardons with an Autopen.

Basic common sense dictates that it stinks like three-day-old roadkill in August. And the left-wing propaganda minions at CNN and MSDNC roll down the window, let the stench pour in, and don’t bat an eyelash.

In the waning days of the Muppeteer Committee’s frantic efforts to cling to its remaining shreds of power, Americans witness yet another stunning victory for accountability, as the Department of Justice reached a settlement in the long-running saga of illegal IRS targeting of Donald Trump.

Far from the corrupt enrichment scheme peddled by the Democrats’ propaganda bureaus, this outcome represented a principled stand against weaponized government. Trump could have pocketed $10 billion in statutory damages (26 U.S.C. § 7431) for this breathtaking breach of his private tax records while a private citizen.

Instead, he directed those resources toward an Anti-Weaponization Fund. It isn’t an “insurrection slush fund,” as detractors claim. This $1.7 billion fund will aid ordinary Americans, regardless of their political party, who are victimized by the same bureaucratic tyranny.

The lunatics of the left-wing fringe, predictably apoplectic, spun this as some unprecedented sweetheart deal. Yet once again, the facts tell a different story.

Trump received zero dollars personally. The audits against his businesses were dropped only for pre-settlement conduct — not some blanket immunity. The fund itself offers relief to citizens across the political spectrum who suffered under the politicized assaults of Lawfare apparatchiks.

Compare this restraint to the Biden Crime Syndicate’s Autopen orgy of self-dealing. Blanket, pre-emptive pardons shielded Hunter and James Biden, Mark Milley, Anthony Fauci, the entire January 6 Committee and all of its staff and witnesses from scrutiny over crimes both known and unknown, complete with an 11-year window of protection and zero public accountability.

The Trump settlement wasn’t corruption; it was restitution.

Previous administrations, including Obama’s (Keepseagle v. Vilsack, $760 million), funneled massive tax-funded settlements through the Judgment Fund without congressional appropriation — often against the advice of career officials — and received glowing coverage from the usual suspects.

When Trump employs the same mechanism to shield past and future victims, rather than enrich himself, suddenly it’s a constitutional crisis.

The sheer hypocrisy reveals the 11 years of Lawfare waged against the former — and future — president: endless tax-funded investigations, prosecutions, civil lawsuits, choreographed leaks, and impeachments designed not to pursue justice, but to badger and cripple a political opponent.

The Democratic Party Deep State (DPDS) and its media allies have long treated the tax code, intelligence agencies, and courts as weapons.

• Discriminatory denial of tax-exempt status to Tea Party groups, followed by Lois Lerner’s mysterious hard drive crash, erasing all her emails? The press says, “We’re not interested.”
• Unauthorized leaks of Trump’s returns? Crickets from the press about the leaker’s federal felony, but what he leaked induced a media feeding frenzy.
• Biden family influence-peddling, documented across continents, bringing in untaxable millions from hostile foreign governments — even terrorist groups and drug cartels? “Nothing to see here.”

The pattern is unmistakable: one set of rules for the DPDS ruling class, another for everyone else.

Trump’s decision to forgo personal gain in favor of a compensation pool for Jan. 6 defendants, FACE Act targets, and other victims of political persecution exposes the fraud at the heart of the “democracy dies in darkness” crowd.

Congress has shown zero appetite for legislating remedies for these citizens. This fund was the only practical path forward.

The propaganda bureaus for the Democratic Party, of course, demand “judicial oversight” now — as if the partisan Democrats in judicial robes, who delivered one anti-Trump decision after another, only to be reversed on appeal and sometimes unanimously scolded by the Supreme Court, are impartial arbiters.

No prior president has ever endured this volume of simultaneous legal warfare, financial record leaks, and targeted audits. Pretending this is business as usual requires a suspension of disbelief that only the most devoted Useful Idiots of the DPDS regime can muster.

Ultimately, this settlement underscores a deeper truth. While the lunatics of the left-wing fringe hyperventilate about “threats to democracy,” the real danger has always been the unaccountable DPDS administrative state, operating as an extension of one political party.

Eleven years of Lawfare have failed. Americans see through the smokescreen, and rendered their verdict in November 2024.

True leadership means rejecting personal windfalls, to protect innocent “little guys” from past and future abuses — the exact opposite of the Biden model of “family, cronies and political tribe first, country last.”

The American people, exhausted by this spectacle and the parallel LGBTQ, transgender, DEI and “climate catastrophe” sideshow freaks, are poised to deliver their verdict at the ballot box once again this fall.

Jim Davis has written about dishonest Democrats, in Chicago and across America, from a safe distance in the Northwest Suburbs for half a century. His work has appeared in Daily Caller, Newsmax and American Thinker. You can find him as RealProfessor219 on Rumble.

JEWISH AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH, 2026
Proclamations
May 4, 2026

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

This Jewish American Heritage Month, we honor the countless contributions of Jewish Americans throughout our Nation’s 250 glorious years of independence, and we celebrate their unwavering commitment to the values that make our country great — faith, family, and freedom.

In his letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1790, President George Washington beautifully said, “May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.” Since the earliest days of our Republic, Jewish Americans have helped build the cause of liberty and sustain the greatness of our Nation. Among them was the iconic Haym Salomon, an early supporter of the war for independence. As stories tell us, Salomon was instrumental in the success of our Continental Congress and Founding Fathers, and rallied support for freedom. He was a zealous advocate against tyranny, and even after imprisonment by the British Crown, he continued his work in defense of freedom. In the end, he gave everything to the success of the American Revolution. Like so many Jewish Americans who follow in his footsteps, Salomon’s legacy stands as a testament to the unshakable belief in the American promise.

In the same letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, President Washington proclaimed that the United States “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” Under my leadership, we are aggressively fighting the violence against Jewish Americans that increased under my predecessor, prosecuting hateful criminals to the fullest extent of the law, and working to end the scourge of anti-Semitism throughout our institutions, especially on college campuses. As President, I will never stop fighting to protect our birthright of religious freedom — a sacred right that continues to guide our Nation, drawing us closer to the Almighty each and every day.

Throughout this historic year, we rejoice in the triumph of the American spirit and rededicate ourselves to the cause of liberty and justice for all. In special honor of 250 glorious years of American independence and on the weekend of Rededicate 250 — a national jubilee of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving — Jewish Americans are encouraged to observe a national Sabbath. From sundown on May 15 to nightfall on May 16, friends, families, and communities of all backgrounds may come together in gratitude for our great Nation. This day will recognize the sacred Jewish tradition of setting aside time for rest, reflection, and gratitude to the Almighty.

This month, we celebrate the contributions that Jewish Americans have made to our way of life, we honor their role in shaping the story of our Nation, and we remember that religious devotion, learning, and service to others are enduring pillars of a thriving culture. Through every trial and triumph, the contributions of Jewish Americans have shaped our past, have strengthened our communities, and will continue to inspire American greatness for generations to come.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 2026 as Jewish American Heritage Month. I call upon Americans to celebrate the heritage and contributions of Jewish Americans and to observe this month with appropriate programs, activities, and ceremonies. I further call on all Americans to celebrate their faith and freedom throughout this year, during this month, and especially on Shabbat to celebrate our 250th year.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fourth day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fiftieth.

​​​​​​DONALD J. TRUMP

Story by Jason Lemon

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is facing a new impeachment resolution put forward by a House Democrat.

The long-shot effort was introduced on Thursday by Representative Steve Cohen. The Tennessee Democrat announced last week that he would forgo his reelection bid after it became clear he was unlikely to win, as the state moved swiftly to gerrymander following a seismic Supreme Court opinion in late April that gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Thus far, no co-sponsors have supported Cohen’s resolution. Given that Republicans narrowly control the House, the resolution is not expected to advance, but it signals the level of frustration many Democrats feel with the 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

In a statement announcing the resolution, Cohen said that Roberts has led the court to be “understood as biased: with decisions designed to benefit Republicans at the expense of representative government, seemingly contradictory and unexplained orders, and a pattern of ethical breaches that raises questions about the role of the wealthy.”

“I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that while John Roberts remains Chief Justice, correcting this misconduct and ensuring the Justices and the Court itself comply with their legal obligations will be impossible,” the Democrat said.

In recent years, after the appointment of three justices during President Donald Trump’s first term, the court has shown a willingness to undo a series of controversial precedents tied to abortion access, voting rights, affirmative action and more. While many Republicans support these moves, most Democrats are critical and believe the court has become overtly partisan.

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In 1787, Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Adams’s Son-in-law, wrote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” This was not, by any means, just a cavalier comment. Thomas Jefferson, along with George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and others, as stoic observers of history, experienced firsthand the reality, depth and dimension behind the need to petition a King, the need to confront his empire, and the cost of confronting that empire for independence and freedom. That was an extraordinarily significant and revolutionary thing. No one had done that before and spun off their own independently sovereign country in the history of the world.

What is fascinating about the dynamic of independence and freedom is that ordinary people were willing to step up and step in to battle, either to subdue or defeat an aggressor or a threat asserted by one. When the United States was under attack or its status of a free country was under threat, the offense enraged, inspired, emboldened, and moved to action people who were loyal to their nation and families. That said, millions of Americans put their lives on the line in order to secure the future of both. Whether it was the Revolutionary war, or whether it was the attack on Pearl Harbor, or September 11th 2001, Americans have in their blood a “fight or flight” reaction that echoes the sentiments of the delegate/Governor of South Carolina at the time of the revolution, Patrick Henry, who resoundingly and passionately stated, “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

Memorial Day is a day set aside to pay respect and honor the lives of the fallen in battle; those who took heed to answer that call to arms, placed their lives on the line to protect our nation, their families, and our way of life, but didn’t make it. Where the call to war demanded a response, they answered it, and even though they didn’t make it, their vacancy left behind an aura of heroism that rings loud and clear forever and ever. That said, Jefferson’s words, at their core, means that dire situations and circumstances that threaten the cause of freedom, calls for action, and that action in turn becomes a force, a force that “waters” that tree of liberty, in order that this country and all of its inhabitants can remain free and continue to grow. In that growth, it offers each and every one of us a chance towards fighting for something that needs to be fought for, which is a critical dynamic that needs to be kept maintained. And it is in this lively spirit that we honor the spirited who gave their lives to keep freedom available to all.

SP/4 Jeffrey Haerle was a Morse Intercept Operator (as I was) for the Army Security Agency (ASA) The ASA was the Army’s signal intelligence (SIGINT) component. The specific job of the the Morse Intercept Operator in Vietnam was to search for, and copy, the messages sent in morse code, via the shortwave radio band, by enemy forces in order to derive intelligence information and in some cases, to assist in the use of radio direction finding to locate the enemy. Although hardly used today, during the 60s and 70s, morse code was one of the primary means of communication used by the NVA and Viet Cong.

After serving a year in 1967/1968 at the ASA installation located at Phu Bai, Republic of Vietnam, I was sent to the ASA Field Station on Okinawa where I met Jeff. After a few months there, Jeff requested to go to Vietnam on TDY (temporary duty) status. His request was granted and Jeff was sent to a tactical unit located in Tay Ninh Province. On the night of May 13, 1968 while performing his job on Nui Ba Den mountain, he was killed in action when the Viet Cong (South Vietnamese communist guerillas) launched a rocket into his unit location. He was 21 years old.

Although not a “combat arms” soldier, Jeff performed the ultimate sacrifice for his country.

The risk of a catastrophic explosion at a damaged chemical tank in Southern California has been eliminated following a close overnight inspection that confirmed a crack in the tank relieved pressure and cooled the chemical, authorities said Monday.

The results of the evaluation was “incredibly positive news,” and allowed officials to turn the corner after days of concern about a possible explosion, said Orange County Fire Authority division chief Craig Covey.

However, evacuation orders remained in place for about 50,000 people in Garden Grove, California, located south of Los Angeles. There has been no chemical leak as of early Monday, but the Orange County Fire Authority said the risk to public safety is “ongoing.”

Covey didn’t say in the recorded message what the most likely outcome might be but officials had previously said they hoped to cool off the chemical inside the tank so it wouldn’t leak or explode. The tank’s interior had cooled to 93 degrees F (33.9 degrees C), Covey said, down from 100 degrees (37.7 Celsius) Sunday.

After the tank overheated Thursday and began venting vapors, firefighters have repeatedly sprayed the tank with water in an attempt to cool the chemical inside, methyl methacrylate, which is used to make plastic parts. As the interior temperature rises, methyl methacrylate converts from a liquid to a gas and increases the pressure, according to Purdue University engineering professor Andrew Whelton.

GKN is a British company that supplies aircraft manufacturers

The tank is at a site owned by GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems, which makes cockpit windows, canopies and windshields for military and commercial aircraft.

The tank holds 6,000 to 7,000 gallons (22,700 to 26,500 liters) of methyl methacrylate used to make plastic parts.

GKN Aerospace, a British industrial company, says on its website that it employs about 16,000 people across 32 manufacturing sites in 12 countries and supplies technologies and components used by major commercial and military aircraft manufacturers worldwide.

It remained unknown when the operation would reopen.

Disruptions at facilities producing specialized aircraft components can be difficult for the global aerospace industry to absorb because supply chains are highly concentrated globally and already strained, said Richard Aboulafia, managing director of the aerospace consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory.

Aboulafia said aerospace manufacturing differs from many other industries because aircraft production rates are relatively low, leaving only a small number of suppliers for many specialized parts and systems.

“There’s just not a lot of margin in the system,” he said.

Dealing with displacement and health concerns

Aerial photos taken by The Associated Press showed streets in the area were empty Sunday, while several evacuation shelters were open.

Garden Grove is next to Anaheim, home to Disneyland’s two theme parks, which were not under evacuation orders. Park officials said they were monitoring the situation.

Exposure to methyl methacrylate can cause serious respiratory problems, neurological problems and irritation to the skin, eyes and throat, according to fact sheets about the chemical.

Orange County health officials said the chemical is easy to smell and people may notice it over a large area without being harmed.

Residents taking legal action

Some Garden Grove residents filed a class-action federal lawsuit Saturday against GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems. Lawyers for the residents argued that regardless of what happens, property values in the surrounding community are sure to be impacted.

GKN Aerospace did not comment on the lawsuit but has apologized to residents and businesses forced to evacuate. It said Sunday it was “working around the clock to mitigate the risk of a leak.”

GKN Aerospace agreed in 2025 to pay state regulators more than $900,000 to settle violations involving recordkeeping, permitting issues and nitrogen oxide emissions, according to a report on the South Coast Air Quality Management District website.

___

Associated Press journalist Ethan Swope in Garden Grove, California, contributed to this report.

Far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) appears to be moving toward a possible run for the White House, Axios reported Sunday.

Although she has said she has not made a decision on the matter, Ocasio-Cortez has been on a national tour rallying voters and making endorsements in several races, the outlet said.

The Axios article detailed some of her recent movements and plans:

Addressed the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta with Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock. (Democrats note that Warnock, the church’s senior pastor, doesn’t always allow visiting politicians to speak at this church. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg didn’t speak when he visited in March.)

…

This week, Ocasio-Cortez will travel to Missoula, Mont., to campaign for congressional candidate Sam Forstag, a smokejumper and union leader who spoke at a rally with AOC and Sanders last year.

The outlet also noted a person close to her said she was considering running for the Senate in 2028 but had not made a decision regarding a bid for the White House.https://www.breitbart.com/t/assets/html/tweet-5.html#2058662332641742885

The news comes as hard-left Democrats reportedly encouraged Ocasio-Cortez to run for president in 2028, though she recently said her ambitions went far beyond that.

During an interview with Democrat strategist David Axelrod, Ocasio-Cortez said,

 You know, it’s funny because in this op-ed that Jeff Bezos paid for in The Washington Post, there was this line you had mentioned earlier about, well “as a potential 2028 contender,” XYZ, and in the context of that, it was very clear this was a veiled threat, right? It was the elite saying, “If you want this job, you just stepped out of line, and we want you to know where the real power is. It’s in the modern-day barons who own the Post and own the algorithms, and we’re gonna… we’ll make an example out of you.”

What’s funny about that is that they assume that my ambition is positional. They assume that my ambition is a title or a seat. And my ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country. Presidents come and go, Senate, House seats, elected officials, come and go but single payer healthcare is forever, a living wage is forever, worker’s rights are forever, women’s rights, all that.

Meanwhile, Southerners recently called out Ocasio-Cortez for telling northern leftists to “pull up to the South” during a rally in Montgomery, Alabama, with one saying she had “lost her damned mind,” explaining the phrase she used was considered a threat.

Breitbart

In a brief essay,  Bates finished writing “America the Beautiful” before leaving Colorado Springs but didn’t think of publishing it until two years later. The poem was first printed in a weekly newspaper, The Congregationalist, on July 4, 1895. Bates’ patriotic words were soon set to music, most popularly to composer S. A. Ward’s “Materna,” the tune to which we sing it today. Celebrating “country loved” and the “patriot dream,” the song resonated with Americans from all walks of life and became enormously popular. Within twenty years, Bates (after revising some of the lyrics in 1904) had “given hundreds, perhaps thousands, of free permissions” for “America the Beautiful” to appear “in church hymnals and Sunday School song books of nearly all the denominations; . . . in a large number of regularly published song books, poetry readers, civic readers, patriotic readers . . . in manuals of hymns and prayers, and anthologies of patriotic prose and poetry . . . and in countless periodicals.”

While Bates was initially surprised by the poem’s success, she later reflected that its enduring “hold as it has upon our people, is clearly due to the fact that Americans are at heart idealists, with a fundamental faith in human brotherhood.”

This is the version of the poem that Katharine Bates copyrighted and authorized people to use:

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

O beautiful for spacious skies,
   For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
   Above the fruited plain!
      America!  America!
   God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
   From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
   Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
   Across the wilderness!
      America! America!
   God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
   Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
   In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
   And mercy more than life!
      America!  America!
   May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
   And every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream
   That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
   Undimmed by human tears!
      America!  America!
   God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
   From sea to shining sea!

In a brief essay, Bates finished writing “America the Beautiful” before leaving Colorado Springs but didn’t think of publishing it until two years later. The poem was first printed in a weekly newspaper, The Congregationalist, on July 4, 1895. Bates’s patriotic words were soon set to music, most popularly to composer S. A. Ward’s “Materna,” the tune to which we sing it today. Celebrating “country loved” and the “patriot dream,” the song resonated with Americans from all walks of life and became enormously popular. Within twenty years, Bates (after revising some of the lyrics in 1904) had “given hundreds, perhaps thousands, of free permissions” for “America the Beautiful” to appear “in church hymnals and Sunday School song books of nearly all the denominations; . . . in a large number of regularly published song books, poetry readers, civic readers, patriotic readers . . . in manuals of hymns and prayers, and anthologies of patriotic prose and poetry . . . and in countless periodicals.”

While Bates was initially surprised by the poem’s success, she later reflected that its enduring “hold as it has upon our people, is clearly due to the fact that Americans are at heart idealists, with a fundamental faith in human brotherhood.”

This is the version of the poem that Katharine Bates copyrighted and authorized people to use:

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

O beautiful for spacious skies,
   For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
   Above the fruited plain!
      America!  America!
   God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
   From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
   Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
   Across the wilderness!
      America! America!
   God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
   Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
   In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
   And mercy more than life!
      America!  America!
   May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
   And every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream
   That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
   Undimmed by human tears!
      America!  America!
   God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
   From sea to shining sea!

While Bates was initially surprised by the poem’s success, she later reflected that its enduring “hold as it has upon our people, is clearly due to the fact that Americans are at heart idealists, with a fundamental faith in human brotherhood.”

This is the version of the poem that Katharine Bates copyrighted and authorized people to use:

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

O beautiful for spacious skies,
   For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
   Above the fruited plain!
      America!  America!
   God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
   From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
   Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
   Across the wilderness!
      America! America!
   God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
   Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved
   In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
   And mercy more than life!
      America!  America!
   May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
   And every gain divine!

O beautiful for patriot dream
   That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
   Undimmed by human tears!
      America!  America!
   God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
   From sea to shining sea!

I am angry. I’ve been relentlessly scrolling through social media and sundry reports tracking Marco Rubio’s statements throughout the day at various forums during his visit of India. It is Sunday, Day 2 of his four-day sojourn, and he has already kicked up quite a storm, telling the audience at an event in US embassy in New Delhi to mark America’s 250th Independence Day celebrations that “one of those relationships”… he is “so excited about going in to the 21st century, given the challenges and the opportunities of this new era, is India… one of those countries that I know that we have this very valuable strategic partnership with and we share so many values and so many common interests.”

“Valuable strategic partnership”? Of the kind that necessitates slapping the “strategic partner” with 50% tariffs while giving a free pass to the “adversary”? “Shared values” and “so many common interests”? The least the US secretary of state could do is spare us the duplicity.

Does Rubio expect Indians to have the memory of a goldfish? Social media is still rife with images of America’s top diplomat cracking up at the Oval Office in the presence of Shehbaz Sharif and Asim Munir, the man who orchestrated the Pahalgam terror attack, a few months after the heinous crime took place. As mature democracies and partners, both India and the US should be able to continue with their strategic partnership without demanding mutual exclusivity. America might be guided by legitimate national interests in keeping Pakistan close. India equally needs to maintain its close strategic ties, defence and energy partnership with Russia. What America cannot do, is expect India to work against its own national interest and sever ties with Russia while Trump hosts Pakistan’s military dictator at the Oval Office, the man India holds responsible for masterminding one of the worst terror attacks known to humanity. Trump calls Munir “an exceptional human being”, a “fantastic” man, his “favourite field marshal” thrice a week, almost as if to rub India’s nose in the dirt. The US president is entitled to his opinion, but it can’t be the defining principle of India-US ties.

As Evan A. Feigenbaum, a senior diplomat and former policy advisor in the George W Bush administration writes, “the United States and India often differ on Pakistan, but Washington had been sensitive to New Delhi’s equities and tried to shape US policies accordingly. Trump’s fulsome praise for Islamabad and dealmaking with Pakistan’s army and government now raise obvious concerns in New Delhi that this too has gone by the wayside. And these concerns have been amplified exponentially because Trump’s moves came within weeks of the April 22 terrorist attack that killed twenty-six Indian civilians in Pahalgam and led to a new outbreak of hostilities between the two countries.” Secretary Rubio is presumably here to smooth over a fraught relationship and resuscitate a moribund Quad. He should restrict himself to sounding thoroughly transactional, like asking India to buy more American oil and reminding Indian companies of their commitment to purchase $500 billion worth of American goods. That, at least, is an honest approach. Trump, with all his onerous behaviour might be more authentic about the state of the relationship.

Supposedly a frontrunner for 2029 US presidential campaign along with US vice-president JD Vance, Rubio is a clever man. Highly articulate, ‘wicked smart’ and a seasoned diplomat who has set about ‘repairing’ ties after his boss undid 25 years of painstaking diplomacy and took the US-India relationship to the cleaners. But he should not insult our intelligence. Let us not pretend that the past year did not happen, or Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones descended from the silver screen to wipe our collective memory clean with the ‘Neuralyzer’.

In its report ahead of Rubio’s visit to India, the New York Times observes, “Mr. Rubio is in India playing cleanup for Mr. Trump, who tried to cripple the country’s economy with high tariffs last summer after Mr. Modi, the prime minister, refused to nominate the American president for a Nobel Peace Prize. Mr. Trump had insisted that he played a crucial role in getting India and Pakistan to reach a cease-fire after each country had carried out deadly military strikes against the other.”

To its credit, the American newspaper has got the framing right. The single most reason why Trump imposed tariffs on India for buying Russian oil, and did not in the case of China, the biggest buyer, or America’s European allies, was that he was mighty pissed at New Delhi denying him the fake credit for India-Pakistan ceasefire.

The reason was so incredibly petty, so utterly devoid of rationale or common sense that commentators, analysts, journalists and the like offered all sorts of other reasons, but the obvious one.

And that was just the beginning of a comprehensive assault on bilateral ties authored by Trump whose callous disregard for what Rubio claimed on Sunday a “very solid and strong, strategic partnership… one of the most important ones in the world” is matched only by his limitless ability to set the floor consistently lower till it completely collapsed.

Rubio should not expect Indians to forget so soon how his boss through a social media post, announced “Remember, while India is our friend, we have, over the years, done relatively little business with them because their Tariffs are far too high, among the highest in the World, and they have the most strenuous and obnoxious non-monetary Trade Barriers of any Country. Also, they have always bought a vast majority of their military equipment from Russia, and are Russia’s largest buyer of ENERGY, along with China, at a time when everyone wants Russia to STOP THE KILLING IN UKRAINE — ALL THINGS NOT GOOD! INDIA WILL THEREFORE BE PAYING A TARIFF OF 25%, PLUS A PENALTY FOR THE ABOVE, STARTING ON AUGUST FIRST. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER. MAGA!”

India pointed out that the US and EU continue to do big business with Russia in terms of fertilizers, mining products, chemicals, iron and steel and machinery and transport equipment, and that the “targeting of India is unjustified and unreasonable.”

A few days later Trump followed it up with another 25% hike in tariffs, holding India solely responsible for bankrolling Russian war, all the while giving a free pass to China, the biggest buyer by far of Russian hydrocarbons. When Trump singled out India, several European nations were still actively buying Russian energy, specifically LNG and pipeline gas worth billions of dollars. While the EU had largely banned seaborne crude, it had not yet banned Russian LNG or pipeline gas. In 2025, the EU spent approximately $7.8 billion on Russian LNG alone.

So, India was singled out not only for refusing to acknowledge Trump’s mythical role in the India-Pakistan ceasefire, or refusal to nominate him for the Nobel prize, but also because Trump wanted to show New Delhi its place. His interventionism in India’s foreign policy, his coercive measures to dictate India’s energy procurement were designed to simultaneously display his awesome power, and he sought to do so by repeatedly humiliating New Delhi with harsh words and juvenile insults.

India chose reticence over retaliation. But that does not mean we have forgotten everything.

It is not just about the juvenile behaviour, or the racist characterisations about India and Indians that Trump and senior figures around him made commonplace. The structural underpinnings of the ties are now under threat that no amount of smooth talking from Rubio may fix.

Trump is messing with India’s effort to ensure plentiful and cheap energy to its people. He has drawn Pakistan closer in an ever-tightening embrace, made it the fulcrum of America’s West Asia policy. He is seeking a détente with China, treating its own allies and partners as supplicants (including India) to be squeezed for resources, and his reckless war against Iran has struck a body blow to India’s macroeconomic stability.

Trump’s war has severely disrupted India’s energy security by effectively shutting down transit through the Strait of Hormuz. This maritime chokepoint facilitates nearly half of India’s crude imports and 90% of its LPG needs. The conflict has forced India into emergency supply diversification, triggered domestic shortages of LPG and LNG, and heightened macroeconomic risks like inflation, widening of current account deficit and downward pressure on the rupee. Each of these actions, by itself, is enough to interfere with the stability of India-US ties and cause a fatal rupture.

During his remarks at the US embassy event on Sunday, Rubio told the audience – with India’s foreign minister Jaishankar in the room – that “I want you to know that part of my visit here is also to reinforce how important this relationship is, how exciting it is, and how many opportunities we have to do things together. If I think about all of the key issues and all of the key opportunities of the modern economy, India and the United States together are perfectly positioned, are perfectly positioned to work together on these issues to achieve a better life for the people of the United States, for the people of India, and frankly for the people of other countries working together as well.”

These tall words sit uneasy with the fact that under Trump Washington might be inching towards what former foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale calls a “de facto G2” where an ascendant China and accommodative US may “increasingly behave like major powers setting the terms of the global order.”

The US-India strategic partnership in the post-Cold War order was built on the central premise of shared concern over China’s rise. From the 2008 Civil Nuclear Agreement, the Quad, the iCET, TRUST, Pax Silica, and deepening of defence cooperation, every major institutional advance in the partnership was underwritten by a common interest in preventing Chinese dominance of the Indo-Pacific. Trump’s accommodation with Beijing removes the foundational logic of this partnership.

India, consequently, finds itself simultaneously penalised with punitive tariffs and deprived of the strategic cover that Washington’s posture had provided. Trump has also demonstrated a profound disregard for India’s core security and economic interests through his senseless Iran war. For India, a stable West Asia is not a remote foreign policy abstraction, but an absolute necessity for energy security, maritime trade, and the safety of millions of its diaspora workers.

For Trump to suddenly appear over the phone during the live event in New Delhi and in his characteristic bombast, claim that he “loves India”, that he is a “big fan of Prime Minister Modi”, and that “we’ve never been closer to India… anything India wants, they get…” is not just discourteous, it’s condescending.

In his infinite hubris, Trump might think that base flattery can fix broken relationships, but that’s not how it rolls here in this part of the world. Stay transactional, Mr secretary of state. Tell us what we can do for you