Permission to dance
When we couldn't help but tap our feet to the beat of America's future.
I was in the Woodlands Mall recently, just outside Houston, when I heard it. R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. through the ceiling speakers, breaking through all the regular mall hubbub. And it really hit me, I felt it in my chest. It’s not that it’s a favorite song, not one that I have a deep connection to. But the beat. It had warmth, a sheer, exuberant, joy. Not purely nostalgic, but also alive.
It’s not so much purely the sound, but the tone. It’s a song that isn’t bragging. It isn’t threatening. It’s not trying to “take America back” from anyone. It’s joyful and inclusive. A fun, even slightly silly, celebration of American music…and the American spirit. Not the flag-waving version, the kind that made room for anyone who wanted to sing along.
We’ve drifted a long way from that. R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. isn’t just a fun, throwback, anthem. It’s a representation of a country that felt supremely confident in itself.
1980s American patriotism was loud, but it wasn’t clenched up. There was swagger and brashness, but it came with openness. Sure, that swagger was built partly on a myth. But it was a future-looking myth. Not a greatness just to be preserved, but a greatness to be shared.
That’s what made it all such a potent export. I didn’t grow up here. I was a kid in Britain. But, like so many others around the world, I grew up in America’s cultural orbit. Music, movies, slogans, stories. They weren’t always telling the truth, but they told it confidently. America wanted to be admired, and believed - deeply - that it was admirable. Yes, there are dangers in that belief, but it’s also really magnetic.
Even Ronald Reagan, for all his contradictions, granted amnesty to immigrants. Not in spite of how great America was, but because of it. There’s a quiet assumption underneath it all: Why wouldn’t you want to be part of this? America didn’t feel fragile. It didn’t feel like it was beset upon by every imagined threat. Its power was cultural, moral - at least in its eyes - and founded in a deep confidence.
That’s not how patriotism manifests itself today. Now it’s all shrill and suspicious. It tries to make up with volume what it lacks in strength. A flag isn’t an invitation any more, it can feel more like a warning. The mood shifted from “we’re building something” to “we’re under attack”. We’ve changed from open arms to closing the gates.
I don’t think that’s just a surface level change in tune. It comes from an underlying emotion. Patriotism today is couched in fear. It imagines a nation that’s under siege - by immigrants, by queerness, by “wokeness”, even by books and by self-reflection. Hell, even under siege from history itself - treating diversity, or critique, or simple curiosity as an existential threat.
That’s not how you behave if you’re confident. It’s insecurity trying to masquerade itself as strength.
If America is as great as all that, what are people so afraid of?
If Christianity is as strong as so many believe, why would it need laws to protect it from being questioned?
If the founding ideals of this country are so sound, why would we fear examining the extent to which we’ve lived up to them?
These weren’t such front-of-center questions in 1985, but they cut really deep in 2025.
When I hear a song like R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A., it’s not just nostalgia that I’m feeling. I feel haunted. That song isn’t just upbeat. It was hopeful…it still feels hopeful. It came from a country that believed it had a future that was worth dancing toward. That wasn’t an America that felt the need to wall itself off in order to stay great. It assumed that greatness was something you shared, not hoarded.
It’s a mood and a sense of America that really resonates for me. Not so much the myth of America, but the confidence to imagine that myth in the first place. And a generosity to invite others in to share it. The willingness to tell our stories out loud, including (even especially) the complicated ones, without some fear that doing so will break us.
Patriotism doesn’t have to be cruel to be strong. Cruelty suggests the exact opposite. I clench my fists when I’m afraid.
The America that I first fell in love with wasn’t afraid of loss. It was ready, eager, to build. To play louder. To start dancing and figure out the rest as it went along.
I really miss that feeling. I don’t miss it because it was perfect - it wasn’t. I miss it because it was a belief strong enough to not be afraid.
And, even in a more cynical world, I think it’s a belief we can get back. That confidence and joy are not incompatible with truth. And that we want everyone to have the opportunity to share in it.
And a belief like that? I think that’s the most American ideal of all.
The song that inspired this piece - R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. - John Mellencamp (Spotify)