In a column this week, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman described the complex America he witnessed  in a four-day car trip through the heart of the nation.  As he wrote, the tour started in Austin, Ind., went down through Louisville Ky, wound through Appalachia and ended up at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

His conclusion was that while we do have an epidemic of failing communities,  we also have a bounty of thriving ones – not because of Washington, but because of strong leaders at the local level.  (Full column is at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/opinion/rusting-and-rising-america.html?_r=0)

What Friedman found this year parallels what Atlantic Magazine’s national correspondent James Fallow found a year earlier and reported in the March 2016 issue, which asked on its cover “Can America Put Itself Back Together?”  Fallow described how  innovators in centers across the country were reweaving the national fabric in various “laboratories of democracy” and that their progress and goals will soar once the mood of the country changes and embraces it.  (Read more at  https://www.theatlantic.com/press-releases/archive/2016/02/the-atlantics-march-issue-how-america-is-putting-itself-back-together-by-james-fallows/462180/).

I would add that if you study history, America has always swung back and forth in terms of those voted into political power, with resulting shifts in levels of confidence in the future.

We have just rightly celebrated our military heroes over the Memorial weekend holiday. Now  I hope  the country will also recognize the greatness of our on-going ability to constantly reinvent ourselves and embrace the challenges of the future.   Yes, I still believe America in all its diversity and contrasting landscapes, remains an unmatched super power.