United States | An Un-American Feeling

I. The Unease of 2026

There is a growing tension in the United States that many Americans can feel but struggle to name. It is a feeling of national instability, a soft internal shaking. Abroad, the federal government is taking increasingly aggressive foreign-policy positions in the name of “democracy,” while at home, democratic norms and constitutional protections are showing visible signs of strain. The contradiction is unsettling, and it is beginning to feel familiar in a historical sense.

This week, federal agents in Minnesota profiled and pursued off-duty police officers of color without cause. According to the Minneapolis Police Federation, officers recognized instantly that their constitutional rights were being violated, which is unsurprising given that law-enforcement personnel are tested on constitutional standards before earning certification.¹ When individuals trained to spot constitutional breaches report that a federal agency violated their rights, it validates the magnitude of similar claims brought for years by civilians. As the federation noted, it is acknowledged by those who are skilled and certified in identifying constitutional violations, a level of expertise that leaves little room for ambiguity. These events are not isolated. They mark a domestic moment that mirrors a larger historical pattern: the widening gap between the ideals the nation claims to defend and the reality experienced by its own citizens.

II. A Pattern We Have Seen Before

This contradiction is not new. During the Cold War, the United States positioned itself as the global defender of democracy while many Americans were denied political rights at home. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy acknowledged this uncomfortable truth when he warned that the United States could not credibly promote freedom abroad while failing to secure it internally.² The following year, Fannie Lou Hamer confronted the Democratic National Convention with her now-famous testimony about being beaten and arrested simply for attempting to register to vote. Her appeal exposed, with painful clarity, the hypocrisy of American democracy during the civil-rights era.³

Martin Luther King Jr. repeatedly insisted that a nation cannot measure its democratic health by its rhetoric, but by the lived experiences of its people. His critique was not directed only at segregationists, but at a national structure that claimed to advance liberty while tolerating widespread injustice. Today, that same structure is under strain again.

III. Domestic Erosion and Foreign Adventurism

The profiling of off-duty officers would be alarming in any context. But it is occurring at the same moment the United States is escalating its foreign-policy aggression. The administration recently declined to attend the G7 summit in Paris, a break with decades of U.S. diplomatic engagement. At the same time, it has entertained or threatened actions involving Venezuela, Greenland, and Iran. Invading sovereign nations contradicts the core democratic norms the United States helped construct after 1945. Those norms emphasize territorial integrity, collective security, and mutual accountability. The irony is difficult to ignore: the United States was instrumental in shaping these principles and encouraging other nations to adopt them as standards of responsible governance. Violating them now damages both national credibility and long-standing alliances.

Reporting from AP News and The Guardian highlights rising tensions over Greenland, where the United States has increased pressure on an autonomous territory that has repeatedly stated it is not for sale.⁵ AP coverage details how tariff threats, pressure on European partners, and renewed U.S. interest in Greenland have shaken NATO and the broader Western alliance.⁴ Reuters and other outlets have described the economic and diplomatic fallout from U.S. rhetoric, including talk of a possible trade war with Europe and efforts by officials to downplay allied concern.⁶ The Wall Street Journal has warned that Europe now views the United States, not Russia or China, as the most destabilizing force in the Western alliance.⁷

These developments point to a profound shift. Allies are preparing contingency plans for a world where American reliability can no longer be assumed.

This external instability mirrors the internal contradictions unfolding at home. As federal agencies violate constitutional protections, the United States simultaneously insists that its foreign actions are undertaken in the defense of democracy. The result is a widening disconnect between American rhetoric and American behavior, both abroad and within our own borders.

IV. Validity and Credibility

The chief of the Minneapolis Police Federation made an important observation: his officers knew their rights were violated because they are trained in those rights. Their experience confirms what many civilians have reported for years. Constitutional erosion is no longer theoretical. It is measurable. It is visible. It is acknowledged by those who are skilled and certified in identifying constitutional violations, a level of expertise that leaves little room for ambiguity.

This matters beyond the incident itself. Internal constitutional instability weakens external credibility. A nation losing moral clarity at home cannot project moral clarity abroad. This was true in 1964 when the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party exposed the gap between American ideals and American practice. It is true again today.

V. The Un-American Feeling

There is an unease rising among Americans that is deeper than partisanship. It is the recognition that the pillars of national stability are being stressed simultaneously. International alliances are fracturing. Federal agencies appear increasingly unrestrained. State and local law-enforcement agencies now find themselves challenged by federal actions that violate the constitutional boundaries they are sworn, trained, and certified to uphold, placing the rule of law as we have come to know it in a state of growing uncertainty. Domestic civil rights feel less secure. Even the Department of Justice, the nation’s highest law-enforcement institution, is facing credible allegations of internal political interference, further destabilizing public trust. And foreign-policy actions justified as “democratic” are contradicting the very norms the United States once championed.

These developments raise an unnerving question about jurisprudence itself: do such violations and shifting precedents risk granting future defendants a kind of legal escape route by undermining the very norms and structures that hold them accountable?

This is the un-American feeling. It is not about patriotism or party affiliation. It is the recognition that the nation is drifting away from the principles that defined it. The uncomfortable truth is that the United States is teaching the world how to operate without it at the very moment it is struggling to uphold its own constitutional commitments.

Whether this is a temporary rupture or the beginning of a more permanent realignment remains to be seen. But history is unambiguous: when domestic legitimacy erodes, international leadership erodes with it. The United States has faced such contradictions before. In the 1960s, it confronted them through transparency, activism, and structural reform. Whether it will do so again is now one of the defining questions of this era.

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