We need to teach Americans to hope again, not be victims

This week, a Wall Street Journal poll found that people are turning away from traditional values such as religion, patriotism and having children. Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) says the main problem is that young people are being fed a false narrative — and are desperate for hope.

There’s not enough that can be said about the power of hope.

When I look around America today, I see a people yearning for it, but instead being sold a drug of victimhood and the narcotic of despair by the radical Left. 

Something’s changed. It’s not the people that have changed.

No, the American people still have their defining desire and passion for greatness.

What’s changed is the message they’re told day in and day out by leaders who can’t see beyond the past.   

The hope isn’t gone, it just needs to be nurtured and shared.

The hope within the American people is still alive and well, we just need to bring it to the light.

To bury hope and optimism is to suffocate the American Dream. 

To tend to that hope and help it grow, however, ushers in a new American sunrise.

Brighter days are ahead, I promise you that. 

I understand the power of hope and optimism because I grew up in a world where it was all we had.

As a poor kid raised in a single parent household mired in poverty, I could have given up hope.

Like many poor families, we moved around a lot.

I attended four different elementary schools by the fourth grade, and, later, I almost flunked out of high school. 

But I never lost hope. 

My family taught me my future was not defined by my circumstances.

Instead of victimhood, they chose victory.

They taught me the power of prayer and the dignity of hard work.

My granddaddy was born in 1921 in Salley, South Carolina.

He dropped out of school in third grade because there was no use for an educated black child.

Instead, he started picking cotton.

Despite living in the Jim Crow south, despite having to step off the sidewalk when a white person walked by, he believed then what some doubt now – in the goodness of America.

It was that stubborn hope that allowed my grandfather who picked cotton to live long enough to see his grandson pick out his seat in Congress.

My mama worked 16-hour days as a nurse’s aide, changing bed pans and rolling patients.

Now she holds the Bible when her son takes the oath of office in the United States Senate.

They are living proof that the story of America isn’t its original sin.

It is a story of redemption, one that we’ve all experienced in some fashion.

They’re proof there is no ceiling in life.

One can go as high as their character, their education, and their perseverance will take them. I bear witness to that.

I testify to that.

The faith of a mother and the lessons of a mentor taught me that all things are possible because we are Americans, and I’ve never been more optimistic about the future of this country.

In the freest and fairest country this world has ever known, opportunity continues to expand even if our politicians don’t see it.  

Our leadership today wants you to believe that America is irredeemable, that the best is behind us.

They’ve spread the message that our present is defined by our past, eroding away at the very patriotic foundation of our nation.

But I see a different future.

Because I have walked a different path.

Hardworking Americans – Democrats, Republicans, and Independents – all agree that the American dream isn’t something to be seen through a political lens.

Yet, survey after survey claims to paint a grim picture of how Americans view the future of their country.

What surveys can’t measure is the strength of a single mother with nothing but hope, faith, and love for her children.

A mother who’s daily challenge is rejecting victimhood while hoping and praying that some way, somehow her kid will be better off than she was.

She knows that’s possible, though, because she lives in America. 

Let me be clear: The painful parts of America’s past are not to be ignored, but they must underscore why we need new leaders who will lift us up, not tear us down.

We need leaders who believe that out of our pain can come our purpose.

We need a leader who understands the future of our nation is rooted in two basic principles: Freedom and responsibility.

When individuals take responsibility for their futures, We the People collectively are stronger.

These simple truths have taken our nation to unbelievable heights.

Millions upon millions of Americans can tell you about the pain of their past that birthed the promise of their future.

Millions of Americans can tell you that obstacles came first and the opportunities came second.

But it’s those opportunities that give us a reason to take on those obstacles, rather than throw in the towel before the fight even begins. 

Yet, today, there’s a cycle in which people want you to believe what they say in spite of what you see. 

Their words are no match for our evidence.

Their pessimism is no match for our progress. The truth of our lives disproves their lies. 

I believe it because I have lived it.

I am living the American dream.

I have held the truth, the unalienable truth, that all men and women are created equal and endowed by our Creator with the right to be free.

I am not merely a believer in the principle of America; I am an eye witness.

We will always fight to form a more perfect union, to strive to make sure we are better off, our kids are more prosperous, and our nation continues to be the shining city on the hill, a beacon of hope in the darkest storms, and an unrelenting light for all the world to see.

We do that not by tearing apart the very fabric of our nation, but by embracing it.

America can do for so many what it has done for me.

When some choose grievance and strife, choose greatness.

When others choose fear, choose faith.

The future of America will be decided not despite its people, but by them.