by Jacob G. Hornberger

July 15, 2026

Donald Trump became president by promising to make America great again. It’s not going to happen. That’s because Trump, like virtually every other conservative, believes that the way to make America great again is by making the federal government, especially its military and intelligence forces, ever more powerful. The more powerful the federal government, the conservative argument goes, the greater the nation.

Actually, however, it’s the exact opposite. The more powerful the federal government, the weaker the nation. The weaker the federal government, the greater the nation. The way to make America great again is by dismantling the welfare-warfare state systems that have made the federal government all-powerful and omnipotent.

Of course, there is an important preliminary point that must be emphasized, a point that most conservatives simply cannot comprehend. That point is this: the federal government and the nation are two separate and distinct entities. Conservatives conflate the two. They think that the federal government and the nation are one and the same thing. Thus, when they are making the federal government more powerful, in their minds they are making the nation greater.

Our American ancestors who called the federal government into existence with the Constitution clearly understood the difference between the federal government and the nation. Their mindset was reflected by the Bill of Rights, which expressly protects the nation from the federal government. They understood that the biggest threat to their freedom and well-being lay not with some foreign regime or entity but rather with the federal government itself.

Americans who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries rejected the welfare-state way of life under which we live today. In the late 1800s, for example, there was no income tax or IRS. There was also no Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, and minimum-wage laws. There were also few economic regulations and minimal immigration controls, at least with respect to European immigrants.

Thus, Americans were free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth and decide for themselves what to do with it. There was no governmental welfare “safety net.” Americans looked to themselves to manage their own lives. The result was tremendous economic prosperity and a strong sense of family values and voluntary charity.

Those Americans also rejected the national-security state governmental structure under which we live today. There was no Pentagon, vast military-industrial complex, empire of domestic and foreign military bases, enormous and permanent standing army, CIA, NSA, or FBI. No foreign wars, foreign interventions, coups, governmental assassinations, torture, secret surveillance, Cold War, anti-communist crusade, and indefinite detention. No drug war either. There was simply a minimally sized army.

The result of this unusual way of life was a great nation — one that was prosperous, strong, and charitable, one in which there was a deep sense of self-reliance and can-do. When people were free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth, they saved a large portion of it, which got converted into productive capital — e.g., tractors, trains, ships, and the like. The late 1800s was characterized by new inventions and new businesses, which were making America greater by the day. The standard of living of people, especially the poor, was skyrocketing. That included the fact that millions of immigrants were flooding American shores.

Compare that situation to where we are today. We live under a giant welfare state, one that has made millions of Americans hopelessly dependent on the dole. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, subsidies, grants, loans, bailouts, immigration police state, and the like. That dependency has resulted in a weak nation, one in which people are scared to death of losing their dole and possibly “falling through the cracks.”

We also live under an omnipotent national-security state, one in which the federal government wields totalitarian-like powers, like assassination, torture, indefinite detention, coups, sanctions, embargoes, wars of aggression, undeclared wars, and the like.

Although Americans live under the most powerful government in history, ironically Americans are among the most frightened people in the world. American adults are scared of everything. The communists, terrorists, Muslims, Russia, Cuba, China, Iran, illegal immigrants, drug dealers, and more.

Need I mention the out-of-control federal spending, taxation, debt, and inflation that has accompanied the welfare-warfare state and that is hurtling the nation toward national bankruptcy?

Americans would be wise to dismantle the welfare-warfare state systems that have made the federal government so powerful and America so weak. By restoring America’s founding system of no income tax, no welfare state, and no warfare state, the federal government will be weakened and our nation will be strengthened. That’s the way to make America great again.