JD Vance: You will hear a couple small but loud voices today speak obsessively not of our national greatness but of our national imperfections. They will speak of the powerless and the dispossessed. They will tell you that America is just another country where the weak struggle against the strong. And if they acknowledge that there is anything to be proud of in our history, they'll say it's the fact that sometimes the powerless have won a zero-sum battle. They're wrong. They'll talk about America's sins with the anger and zeal of a brimstone preacher, but without any of the grace or forgiveness that must be present in the Christian faith. These people misunderstand the essence of America. From Thomas Jefferson to Henry Kaiser, they misunderstand that we all have moments of great power despite those very real imperfections. That there are victims and heroes who live inside of each of us. From the most ambitious leaders and builders to steel welders like my grandfather, people who had their own role to play in turning this dangerous wilderness into the proudest civilization in history. So, what I'd ask you to do, my fellow Americans, on our 250th birthday, is to reject the two-dimensional view of your fellow citizens and reject the two-dimensional view of your country. Reject that America is a place for zero-sum thinking because it is not. Our history is one of people carving a great civilization out of the wilderness. Reject the view of your nation that sees only its sins but not its grace and its greatness. Everything that we have done, everything that we have done as a country, we have done together. Not as citizens divided against each other, but as a common people working toward a common future.