Liberty, Bread, and Circuses: A Reflection on the Midterms

Liberty, Bread, and Circuses: A Reflection on the Midterms

Like millions of others, I was heartbroken on Tuesday night as even traditional conservative strongholds voted left. Too many on the right have since descended into endless analysis and self-flagellation. Neither helps us move forward. We need a sober, accurate assessment of what went wrong—not “paralysis by analysis”—so we can learn from defeat and return to the work of preserving the most exceptional system on earth. The incumbent party often loses ground in midterm elections; what surprised me was the scale of these losses.

In his November 4 response to the midterm results, Gad Saad warned that American exceptionalism is increasingly disappearing. His concern was a defense of America’s founding principles, which goes well beyond party loyalty. I share that concern. The stakes reach beyond an electoral victory or defeat: they concern the survival of the ideals that make America exceptional. Without a free and confident America, the rest of the free world cannot endure.

This time, the left did not make transgender ideology or gas-stove bans the centerpiece of its campaign. It focused on affordability. Many people vote with their gas tanks and refrigerators, and the results reflected their economic dissatisfaction. The right must respond directly: explain why the economy is improving, however slowly, and acknowledge the pressures families still face.

But it must also be unequivocal: socialism is never the answer. Economic frustration is no reason to surrender economic freedom. We need policies that expand opportunity, reward independence, and limit government interference in everyday life—not an ideology that casts government as an all-powerful caretaker and turns self-reliance into dependence on the state.

As a survivor of communism, I know the false allure of economic security all too well. Yes, bread was cheap—when it was available. But the whole country was a prison, and everyone was poor except those in the highest echelons of the Communist Party. Cheap bread was no bargain when the price was liberty and human dignity, and an innocent joke could send someone to the gulag. That false promise can never answer America’s economic frustrations. More dangerous still is the intersectional convergence of socialism with anti-Israel, anti-American, and anti-Western ideologies, evident among radical-left candidates and their young, misguided supporters on college campuses and in big cities.

Yet affordability cannot be the sole measure of sound policy. During World War II, patriotism helped sustain sacrifice. Churchill understood how to connect hardship to the defense of freedom; in Edward R. Murrow’s words, “He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”

Today, asking Americans to pay more for gas requires more than an assurance that the burden is temporary. It demands a clear, widely circulated explanation of what is at stake for our children’s safety and liberty. Immigration and multiculturalism have contributed to a troubling shift: large numbers of people come to America solely for a better life, without a corresponding love for its values. Our obligation to protect the next generation from the horrors of socialism and terrorism nevertheless remains.

The war with Iran was not a mistake; it was a courageous act to neutralize a clear and present danger. In his May testimony to the Senate, Energy Secretary Chris Wright warned that Iran was only weeks away from producing weapons-grade uranium—a profoundly dangerous threshold on the path to a nuclear weapon. That threat may seem distant and disconnected from the average voter’s daily concerns. But cheap gas would mean nothing if tomorrow our country were to suffer another 9/11 or a nuclear attack.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but it is probably fair to say that the military operation could have been carried out more swiftly. The public messaging could also have been stronger and more widely communicated. The national-security goals needed to be consistently tied to Americans’ concerns at home: We understand that you want lower costs and better opportunities. We also have a duty to defend this country and prevent a hostile regime from becoming more powerful. Any request for short-term sacrifice must come with clear goals and a candid account of the costs. The threat posed by the Iranian regime must be stated plainly and repeatedly.

The November 4 anniversary recalls a brutal assault on Americans serving their country abroad. In 1979, Islamist militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking its personnel captive with the backing of Ayatollah Khomeini’s government. Fifty-two Americans remained imprisoned for 444 days. The captors bound and blindfolded Americans, displayed them before news cameras, and used threats of lethal violence to enforce their demands.

The effort to free them also exacted a terrible price: eight American servicemen lost their lives during the failed Operation Eagle Claw rescue mission. The remaining hostages regained their freedom on January 20, 1981, just after Ronald Reagan took the presidential oath. The regime responsible for their captivity still chants “Death to America.”

Forty-seven years later, we owe remembrance to the 52 Americans who survived that ordeal and the eight servicemen who died trying to end it. Their suffering cannot be consigned to a history book and ignored when we judge the regime today. Honoring them requires us to remember the cruelty of their captivity—and refuse to minimize it.

Benjamin Franklin warned: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Affordability clearly matters. But lasting prosperity rests on political and economic freedom. The right’s task is not to ask Americans to choose between their household budgets and their children’s future, but to explain how its policies will protect both—and why any sacrifice is necessary. The Roman poet Juvenal famously wrote that the masses need bread and circuses to be content. But bread and circuses are no substitute for liberty.

Leftist educators and media voices mock the American dream while demanding a radical transformation of the country that made it possible. They show no understanding of history and no grasp of where their beloved utopia leads. I have lived the consequences of that false promise. The American dream is now hostage to what Gad Saad calls “suicidal empathy.” We must stop surrendering our civilizational inheritance to ideologies that would destroy that dream.

Our task is not to remake America in the image of a failed utopia embracing “Third-Worldism” but to renew her exceptional principles. We must restore meaningful education, teach history honestly, reject destructive ideologies, and nurture patriotism grounded in knowledge, gratitude, and love of country. I achieved the American dream; our children deserve that opportunity, too. As Reagan said, “here in America we breathe life into dreams.” Let us defend and pass on our traditional values, keeping America an unsurpassed beacon of liberty, opportunity, and achievement. The American dream must not merely survive—it must flourish for generations to come.

Nora D. Clinton is a Research Scholar at the Legal Insurrection Foundation. She was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds a PhD in Classics and has published extensively on ancient documents on stone. In 2020, she authored the popular memoir Quarantine Reflections Across Two Worlds. Nora is a co-founder of two partner charities dedicated to academic cooperation and American values. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son.

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