This speech from Zohran Mamdani on America’s 250th changed my politics. I’ve never seen a more pompous individual whose life has been void of any sacrifice or hard work confidently lecture as if people like him hold the key to human prosperity. Here’s a guy who had never held a job until he found the angle to satisfy his thirst for attention through politics at age 30, sit behind George Washington’s desk and give us a lecture on what is supposed to be a day of celebration. Instead of celebrating what this country built, prosperity and human rights that spread across the globe from basically nothing, he turns the moment into a lecture about how America is this flawed project desperately in need of topdown change from useless academics and politicians who’ve never built anything of value for anybody. As I get older, I have started wrestling with my own ridiculous and undeserved comforts, and the massive sacrifices of generations that made them possible. We should be expressing sheer gratitude for the families who crossed this country in covered wagons chasing a future, for the young men who died in muddy fields and frozen trenches defending it. At some point we let the children forget about this, and it's going to be a tragedy. Our ancestors didn’t sacrifice so we could sit around demanding more redistribution while building nothing of value ourselves and living in opulence kings couldn't have dreamed of. They built something exceptional through risk, and relentless work. Watching someone like Mamdani use the 250th as an opportunity to lecture us about what’s wrong with America, it just flips a switch for me. I’m done with the ingratitude. We need to defend America from those that leech off it's greatness and attempt to redefine it.