The New American Crisis

In the winter of 1776, Tom Paine wrote a pamphlet called The American Crisis to rally the citizens of the United States at a turning point in history. It was just after the Declaration of Independence, when the British empire responded by sending the most powerful army on the planet to crush the American insurgents. The troops of King George forced George Washington’s soldiers to retreat from New York and then pursued the Americans until they finally sought safety across the Delaware River, with many wounded, their uniforms in tatters, and few provisions and little shelter for the harsh winter to come. 

Tom Paine, author of The American Crisis

That was the moment when Tom Paine wrote his famous words, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” It was a low point in the battle for liberty and democracy in the United States, just as we are at a low point today. Now, in 2026, the enormous gains of several generations have been shoved aside in the space of two nightmarish years. Each day, the news is like multiple slaps in the face to all those who hold dear the principles of liberty, justice, equality, diversity, and sustainability.

Our souls are being tried, as we withstand a hurricane of negative news—medical benefits denied to the most needy while billionaires are lavished with tax breaks; hardworking, law-abiding people ripped from their homes and deported, often separating family members; U.S. citizens protesting peacefully who are murdered in the streets by ICE agents acting with the benediction of the President; that same chief executive threatening the United States’ closest and most loyal allies with colonizing their lands and denying them the support that they have given us in wartime; the federal government of the United States conspiring to undermine the most sacred rituals of democracy, the ballot and the right to equal and fair representation; this regime denying the indisputable evidence of an environmental emergency that we have the power and technology to reverse if we will only recognize and act on the science; the officials who should be the guardians of public health embracing crackpot theories that no responsible doctor or researcher gives credence to, endangering countless infants and children. And that is only the visible surface of a wound that goes deep into the body politic of the United States.

It’s not surprising that so many are losing hope in the ability of the United States to turn itself around, to recover faith in its national mission. But the United States has withstood many crises, the advances of King George’s army in Tom Paine’s time being just one in American history. There was the challenge of the Civil War that threatened to slice the United States in half, with one part taking up arms to try to perpetuate slavery and the lie of racial superiority. There was the advance of fascism in the middle of the twentieth century that saw the U.S. Pacific fleet decimated at Pearl Harbor, and Nazi troops only a channel away from subjugating all of Western Europe.

 

Yes, the United States of America is no stranger to crises. But crises require leadership, vision, and eloquence to counter the opponents of liberty, who have a way of hypnotizing the desperate. These are the times that try our souls, and Americans have to be equal to the challenge, to protest peacefully, vote, file lawsuits, pass legislation, write postcards, donate, phone representatives and voters, canvas door-to-door, poll-watch, and talk to neighbors and friends about what is really going on, and how much better the United States can be.

 

We say to those now in power in every branch of the U.S. federal government, and in so many of the states of the USA: our love of humanity will soar above your hatred; our soul is mightier than your denial of common decency to strangers; our grit and passion for justice will outlast your lust for personal plunder; our faith in a beautiful United States with every race, religion, national origin, and gender quilted together shall overcome your narrow, superannuated bigotry; and the USA will once again be a lighthouse that shows that diversity, equality, and justice are the foundation of the United States and of the family of nations.

 

Zack Rogow is the author, editor, or translator of more than twenty books or plays. www.zackrogow.com

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