Former president George W. Bush: In recent decades public confidence in our institutions has declined.
Our governing class has often been paralyzed in the face of obvious and pressing needs.
The American dream of upward mobility seems out of reach for some who feel left behind in a changing economy.
Discontent deepened and sharpened partisan conflicts.
Bigotry seems emboldened. Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication.
We've seen nationalism distorted into nativism.
Forgotten the dynamism that immigration is always brought to America.
We see a fading confidence in the value of free markets and international trade,
forgetting that conflict, instability and poverty follow in the wake of protectionism.
We've seen the return of isolationist sentiments,
forgetting that American security is directly threatened by the chaos and despair of distant places,
where threats such as terrorism, infectious disease, criminal gangs and drug trafficking tend to emerge.
In all these ways we need to recall and recover our own identity.
Our identity as a nation, unlike many other nations, is not determined by geography or ethnicity, by soil or blood.
Being an American involves the embrace of high ideals and civic responsibility.
We become the heirs of Thomas Jefferson by accepting the ideal of human dignity found in the Declaration of Independence.
We become the heirs of James Madison by understanding the genius and values of the U.S. Constitution.
We become the heirs of Martin Luther King Jr.
by recognizing one another not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
This means that people of every race, religion, ethnicity can be fully and equally American
It means that bigotry or white supremacy in any form is blasphemy against the American creed.
