The Mamdani Conundrum

America is the experiment that worked. For two and a half centuries, American freedom has proven resilient—and superior—to the centralized alternatives now back in vogue.

Winston Churchill is said to have quipped, “Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” Historians insist there is no firm record of him uttering those exact words, but the sentiment rings so true to Churchill’s worldview—and to the nation he admired—that it hardly matters. It captures, in a single witty barb, the peculiar genius of American freedom: the liberty to experiment, to fail, to course-correct, and finally to succeed.

Churchill understood this about the United States long before the world came to see America as the indispensable nation. His visits in 1929 and 1931 left him marveling at the raw potential of the American people—the relentless energy, the improvisational spirit, the refusal to be constrained by tradition or hierarchy. What struck him most was not that Americans always knew the right answer, but that they insisted on discovering it for themselves. Trial and error wasn’t a flaw in the American system; it was (and still is) the beating heart of it.

That willingness to “try on things” and to flirt with disaster, whether sensible or harebrained, was the civic equivalent of a free market in ideas. An American could attempt something new—an invention, a business, a political ideal—and if it failed, life went on. If it succeeded, the nation benefited. The founders embedded this premise in our constitutional DNA: ordered liberty, decentralized authority, and a radical trust in individuals to shape their own destinies.

A component I would add to Churchill’s sentiment is that along with the willingness to try, is the courage to recognize when things don’t work—and change course.

I found myself returning to Churchill’s observation last night while thinking about Commie Mamdani’s visit to the Oval Office and the renewed flirtation with collectivist ideology in American life. As we approach the nation’s semiquincentennial—250 years in just over seven months—there is a bitter irony in the idea that we should now abandon the very system that made our improbable rise possible. Collectivism promises efficiency, equality, and stability, but it delivers conformity, stagnation, and the erosion of personal agency.

And if collectivism truly worked—if it actually produced flourishing, innovative, prosperous societies—America, with its unmatched capacity for experimentation, would have figured that out by now.

But we haven’t. In fact, every American brush with collectivist schemes has produced the same result: swelling bureaucracy, diminished accountability, and a dulling of that restless national energy Churchill admired. The problem isn’t that collectivism has never been given a fair test; the problem is that its tests have consistently failed, here and everywhere else.

As the semiquincentennial approaches, it is worth remembering that the American system is built not on the assumption of perfect outcomes, but on the conviction that free individuals—guided by conscience, shaped by community, and protected by limited government—will ultimately discover the right path. It may take time. It may require exhausting every bad idea first. But that is precisely the point.

Churchill, whether he said the famous line or not, grasped a simple truth: America works because Americans are free to learn. Collectivism, by contrast, forbids that learning. It demands obedience, not discovery. And a nation that once astounded Churchill with its potential should not, after 250 years, trade away the freedom that made that potential real.

Happy early birthday, America! Never change your love of change!