Like so many others in the United States, I’ve been watching the news in 2025 with my heart in my throat.

Or maybe it’s plummeting from my throat to the ground. Maybe my heart is having an out-of-body experience. That could be it, because it feels like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I’m not just overwhelmed with the actions being taken by the current Trump Administration, I’m angry. I’m depressed. I’m anxious. I’m scared. I’m deeply, deeply not okay.

The recent incident in the Oval Office between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Trump, alongside Vice President Vance, left me speechless.

I feel like I’m living in an alternate reality where up is down and the elevator goes slant-ways a la Willy Wonka.

And, perhaps, that’s why this scene from “The Newsroom” hit me like a ton of bricks.

{Disclaimer: this video has adult language, harsh realities, and thought-provoking information. If you don’t feel prepared to be hit by a ton of bricks, please click away to read another Elephant Journal article. Like this one, “Resisting with Mindfulness: A Buddhist Guide to the Trump Era.“}

In this opening scene, a college student asks a panel why America is the greatest country in the world.

Everything we’ve been taught about being an American tells us that the answer to this should be simple.

This TV show aired in 2012. For those counting, that was more than a decade ago. This was a year that unemployment fell, that President Obama was reelected, and that Michael Phelps won a record 19th Olympic medal. Bad things happened too, like the tragedy of the Sandy Hook school shooting. But 2012 wasn’t a year as charged as, say, 2024. Or 2025.

We may have been dealing with “Gangnam Style” going viral, but we weren’t questioning whether our President’s actions are legal. Or protesting the loss of thousands of federal jobs. Or arguing about the necessity of Medicare and Medicaid. Or standing up for our National Parks.

Watching this video, my stomach and my heart did that plummeting thing. Again.

My gut was telling me two things:

1. They had no idea in 2012 what was coming.
2. I didn’t have a simple answer. I didn’t even have a good answer that wasn’t simple.

Give it a listen: 

It’s the second part of the answer that gets me. Every time:

“… It sure used to be. We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons. We passed laws, struck down laws—for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not on poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were and we never beat our chest. We built great, big things, made ungodly technological advanced, explored the universe, cured diseases and we cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars, acted like men. We aspired to intelligence, we didn’t belittle it. It didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election and we didn’t scare so easy. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed… by great men, men who were revered. First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.” ~ Will McAvoy, “The Newsroom” 

I would argue that this scene is more relevant now, 12 years later, than it was when it was written.

America, we’re a little lost right now and if we’re honest with ourselves, we can admit that we’re not in the best shape of our lives right now either.

We The People might be preparing for a fight, but we need to grasp onto our morals if we’re going to find our way back to having a simple and honest answer to that question, “why America is the greatest country in the world?”

Because we’re not. Not anymore.

~