Few places symbolize Americans’ ability to persevere through hardship like Valley Forge.
President Donald Trump needs to summon the Spirit of ’76 and rally voters to his side. He should do so from a historic place where our Revolution looked almost lost. His umbrella theme for the election messaging should be making the U.S.’s next 250 years the brightest, coupled with a stark warning that if progressive Democrats take control of the House and Senate this fall, we’re facing a dismal future.
Because Trump’s policies on individual rights, defense, foreign affairs, and trade are, in many respects, a revolt against globalism and rule by elites, the similarity between his presidency and the Revolution is strong. That makes Valley Forge the right place for this speech.
At Valley Forge, Trump needs to address the trying times the United States has come through: globalization that hollowed out industries and communities, a Chinese pandemic that killed 1.2 million Americans and caused the worst inflation in forty years. He should lay out how his policies are righting the course on economic growth, revitalizing domestic production, restoring affordability, and taming inflation.
Throughout the winter of 1777, George Washington quartered his troops — ill-fed, poorly clothed, and low on morale — in improvised log huts at Valley Forge. The Patriots had barely survived 1776, when they were on the run from the British and Hessian mercenaries more than on offense. Some four hundred women, including Martha Washington and other officers’ wives, endured the privations alongside the troops.
At Valley Forge, 1 in 6 died from disease, starvation, or hypothermia. Hundreds more deserted or decamped when their enlistments expired. It was one of the Revolution’s darkest hours, truly a winter of discontent.
The country was bitterly divided between colonialists loyal to King George III and Patriots who wanted to form a free Republic where individuals had specific rights and rulers were elected by voters rather than determined by heredity. John Adams estimated that one-third of the colonists were Loyalists, one-third Patriots, and the rest neutral. Modern historians believe some 400,000 colonists, or 20% of the population, were loyal to Britain, while 800,000 favored independence. The remaining 40% of the colonists were “fence-sitters.”
These divisions meant the War for Independence was as much a Civil War as it was a Revolution. Adams believed this to be America’s natural state. “Divided we ever have been,” he predicted, “and ever must be.”
But there were also bright spots at Valley Forge. Late that winter, Oneida and Tuscarora Native Americans brought supplies and reinforcements. Polly Cooper, an Oneida woman, taught the starving troops to use corn husks to make soup. Baron Von Steuben, a Prussian volunteer, drilled them in military tactics. The French monarchy gave its backing to America’s revolutionary upstarts.
By the time Washington’s army left Valley Forge, the revolutionary cause was growing in strength. Trials lay ahead before eventual triumph, but a turning point in the country’s destiny had been reached.
Fourteen months into Trump’s second term, the U.S. is at another turning point. Trump must tie the continued success of America’s recovery to control of Congress, linking the midterm outcome to the country’s fate in stark terms. He needs to send a message to swing voters and demoralized supporters that he is working on their concerns.
Linking his success to GOP control of Congress is a tough task. Here’s why: only 47% of the public can even name all three branches of government, much less grasp how a change in control of the House or Senate shapes policy. Trump needs to educate these voters while also motivating them to turn out. He needs to explain in plain terms that if the GOP loses control of Congress, the country’s future is in jeopardy.
Historically, midterm elections are one-sided referenda on the president. Trump can flip the script by making the midterm elections a referendum on the “party of crazy.”
At Valley Forge, he should characterize progressive Democrats as the modern-day equivalent of the Loyalists who opposed the Revolution and took up arms against the Patriots. They, after all, are America-hating elitists who want to impose their warped vision of the future on every American, while Trump is the one restoring traditional values in public schools, universities, civil rights enforcement, and the hard-won balance between our individual liberties and government authority. Progressive Democrats will allow boys into girls’ bathrooms and men into women’s sports. They’ll throw open the borders, funnel taxpayer money to academics and Ivy Leaguers out to undermine the U.S.’s standing in the world, and eviscerate the Bill of Rights.
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If Democrats win, they’ll move to restrict the freedom of speech by censoring the internet to silence any opinion or fact that contradicts their radical worldview. They’ll eviscerate the Second Amendment, outlawing the very means by which the American Revolution was won — an armed citizenry. They’ll pack the Supreme Court and shred the Constitution through activist justices. They’ll debank industries and publications they dislike and deplatform individuals who disagree with their dictates. They’ll impose DEI mandates, woke decrees, environmental rules that raise electric bills and make housing more expensive … you get the gist.
Next up: the Gettysburg Address Trump should deliver. Until then, here’s the speech Trump should deliver in Normandy.
John B. Roberts II worked on Reagan’s 1980 and 1984 presidential campaigns and in the White House and was an international political strategist and executive producer of The McLaughlin Group. He is an author and artist.
