Comedian Michael Ian Black has said he might leave the United States even if former President Donald Trump loses the 2024 election.
“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country,” John F. Kennedy once said. It might be one of the most iconic phrases uttered by an American president, but according to Michael Ian Black, the line is “total BS.”
“The fact is, most of us are here by happenstance. We found ourselves pushed into a world neither of our making nor our choosing. The fact that we find ourselves in this particular nation at this particular time is no more than luck of the draw. So why do I owe a single, solitary thing to this landmass on which I find myself?” writes Black in an op-ed for the Daily Beast.
Michael Ian Black feels he owes nothing to a country that has “let so many of us down,” despite his success, which he does acknowledge later on. He likens the “JFK model” of civics to a family wherein everyone puts in their time and effort to improve the home, believing that the family has become too dysfunctional to take care of important matters.
“Yes, I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had in my life. But I can’t honestly say they were given to me by “America” any more than I can say the macaroni and cheese I made for lunch was given to me by Kraft. I paid for that mac and cheese and I have paid for America,” he writes. “And America continues to let me down.”
After going through the list of duties he feels America has failed to uphold – from safety to healthcare to education to infrastructure – Michael Ian Black then laments that America has not been able to establish a cohesive identity since the Cold War and that America has slowly been losing the values it holds sacred by being a “war machine sponsored by Ronald McDonald.”
Comedian Michael Ian Black during an interview with host Seth Meyers on June 19, 2018 — (Lloyd Bishop/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty)
“The values we claim to support: democracy, freedom, equality. Those same values we bomb other countries into accepting aren’t even being practiced at home. We’re neither the freest, most democratic, nor most equal nation,” he writes. “Not even close.”
To his credit, Michael Ian Black distinguishes himself from other liberals who have pledged to leave America in the past, believing they were always speaking from a place of privilege. He even scolds those who advocate for such causes before attending swanky events like the Met Gala. In the end, he hinges his impending exodus not on political candidates (he acknowledges a deeper problem) but whether or not America can actually improve.
“Increasingly, I’m not sure it matters who wins in November. Can any person reorient this hobbling and sclerotic nation in four years? In eight? What can be done to reinvigorate/redefine our national identity? Must we have another goddamned world war for Americans to find purpose?” he asks.
He closes the op-ed with a callback to Kennedy and flatly asks: “What can my country do for me?”
Paul Roland Bois directed the award-winning Christian tech thriller, EXEMPLUM, which can be viewed for FREE on YouTube or Tubi. “Better than Killers of the Flower Moon,” wrote Mark Judge. “You haven’t seen a story like this before,” wrote Christian Toto. A high-quality, ad-free rental can also be streamed on Google Play, Vimeo on Demand, or YouTube Movies. Follow on X @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.
