I’ve been playing a lot of guitar lately. One of the perks of federal prison. The lead guitarist of the band I’m in is named Vinny. At first, I wondered if he was Italian, but it turns out that Vinny is not short for Vincenzo. It’s a nickname. Short for Venezolano. He’s from Venezuela.

If right now you’re thinking “Uh oh. Venezuelan immigrant. Bad hombre alert . . .” that’s understandable, I guess. Between some of the recent tragic news stories and Trump’s alarmist, broad-brush declarations of murderers and rapists, it’s easy to dismiss entire nationalities as horrible people. But for the record, dude is the exact opposite of all that. A gentle spirit who loves rock-n-roll, hates drugs, and teaches a GED class in the education building.

The other night after two hours of Skynyrd’s “Simple Man,” Clapton’s “Cocaine,” Stone Temple Pilots’, “Plush” and Velvet Revolver’s “Fall to Pieces,” we were unplugging amps and wrapping mic cords when he started telling me about a Guns N’ Roses concert in Caracas in the early ’90s. The venue was one of those massive South American soccer stadiums. When Axl sat down at the grand piano and played the opening notes of “November Rain,” the sky opened up and a light drizzle began to fall over the 100,000 people in attendance.

As he was telling me this story, I tried to imagine all those G N’ R fans down near the equator. Which made me think of the time I heard Shakira, the pop star from across the Venezuelan border in Colombia, cover AC/DC’s “Back in Black.”  Then I remembered that Kim Jong Il was a huge Elvis fan and that his son, Kim Jong Un, loves the former Chicago Bull, Dennis Rodman. Muhammad Ali’s Thriller in Manilla and Rumble in the Jungle, Michael Jackson’s Bad world tour, Levi’s jeans, Coca-Cola, Motown, muscle cars, baseball, breakdancing, Mississippi Delta blues, Metallica, the Empire State Building, Microsoft, Google, Amazon . . .

Once upon a time, this nation’s greatest export wasn’t any single commodity. It was what rock-n-roll and Levi’s and Coca-Cola represented: The American Spirit. We were the envy of the world. A shining example of everything a free country could be. And as a result, the Berlin wall came down, the cold war ended without a shot being fired, and McDonald’s started popping up all over what was once the U.S.S.R.

But think about it. What have we been exporting lately? School shootings, Capitol riots, border chaos, Fentanyl overdoses, MSNBC, Fox News, hate, division, a citizenry at each other’s throats…

I remember being shocked when the news broke about a horrific school shooting in Thailand last year. Thailand? This was followed by a similar incident in Prague, the first in that country’s history. How many capitol riots—or “sightseeing tours,” if you prefer—have there been since January 6, 2021? I know of at least two: one in Brazil not too long afterward, and there was another last week in Kenya. Coincidence? Probably.

But it’s no coincidence that far right movements and authoritarian strongmen are popping up all over the globe. In the great geopolitical game of Follow the Leader, America sets the tone.  We are the world’s longest running democracy. And for decades our quality of life has been the most powerful argument against dictatorships, autocracies, and communist systems of government.

Liberty, Justice, Honor, Opportunity—these are more than just flowery ideals. They are what make us uniquely US. And they are what inspires the rest of the world to want to be like us. The hope and promise of freedom is our greatest export. Let’s not piss it away.

—July 12, 2024