What Unites Us

What does it mean to love your country—and do so responsibly? In What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism, veteran journalist Dan Rather and co-author Elliot Kirschner explore the moral core of American identity. Rather argues that patriotism isn’t about blind allegiance or fear-fueled nationalism; instead, it is a living practice—an act of courage, empathy, and engagement with the perpetual work of democracy. The American experiment, he insists, is unfinished and always will be.

Through personal anecdotes from his eight decades of reporting and reflection, Rather returns us to first principles: the values that formed the Republic and the ways they’ve been tested—by war, injustice, greed, and ignorance—but also reaffirmed through courage, fairness, and what he calls “the steady heart of a nation.”

Patriotism as Dialogue, Not Superiority

Rather makes a clear distinction between patriotism and nationalism. The former is a dialogue—a conversation with one’s country that acknowledges both pride and fault. The latter is a monologue rooted in arrogance and domination. True patriotism, he says, is about striving to make America better, not asserting its infallibility. In times of crisis, such as after 9/11, this distinction becomes crucial. We can love deeply while questioning fiercely. The danger arises when flag pins and slogans replace civic responsibility and empathy.

Freedom and Accountability

Freedom, in Rather’s view, is both a gift and a duty. It demands citizens who think critically, participate actively, and challenge complacency in government and media alike. Drawing on his experiences as a journalist covering civil rights and Watergate, he shows that a free press is not the enemy of the people but their guardian. Censorship and apathy, he warns, can erode liberty faster than any external force. Comparing his times with Orwell’s 1984, he reminds readers that truth survives only if someone insists on telling it.

Community, Empathy, and Inclusion

Much of the book’s emotional force lies in its belief that American greatness depends on our capacity for empathy. Through stories of Depression-era neighbors helping one another, battlefield sacrifices, and modern struggles for equality, Rather paints empathy as political armor against division. He threads this through discussions of inclusion—of women, African Americans, immigrants, and LGBTQ citizens—arguing that progress requires not merely tolerance but genuine connection.

Exploration and Responsibility

Chapters such as “Science,” “The Environment,” and “The Arts” link patriotism with curiosity and stewardship. To Rather, exploration—whether scientific, artistic, or environmental—is central to the American spirit. He sees Apollo astronauts looking back at Earth and notes how the “Earthrise” photograph united humanity in shared fragility. The same spirit must guide how we confront climate change, defend education, and nurture the next generation of thinkers and dreamers.

Character, Courage, and Steadiness

In the latter essays, Rather reflects on aging, failure, and renewal. His mantra—learned from his father—is a single word: steady. True courage, he writes, is continuing forward even when you are afraid—of irrelevance, change, or injustice. From Lincoln’s second inaugural address to Elie Wiesel’s moral clarity, he finds examples of Americans who stayed steady for freedom’s sake. In doing so, he challenges each reader to become both participant and guardian of democracy.

Ultimately, What Unites Us is not nostalgia but a call to action: to treat patriotism as a verb. America’s endurance, Rather suggests, will depend not on the grandeur of its monuments but on whether its citizens choose dignity, realism, and shared purpose over cynicism, silence, and fear. If we speak and listen, question and care, we can still reclaim what unites us.

For Dan Rather, patriotism begins not with waving a flag but with looking inward. He recalls his childhood in working-class Texas during the 1930s and 40s—a time of hardship and hope. His earliest sense of America came from humble rituals: singing patriotic songs on the way to the beach, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, and reading about the Great Wall–like seawall in Galveston. None of this was grand, but it rooted him in belonging.

Patriotism vs. Nationalism

He argues that nationalism is a distortion of love of country. It is loud, punitive, and intolerant—“a monologue,” as he writes. Patriotism, by contrast, is a dialogue rooted in humility and faith in our ideals. It asks that we confront flaws with clarity. Rather quotes George Washington’s warning to beware “pretended patriotism” and connects it to modern political theatrics that equate dissent with disloyalty.

Patriotism as Moral Work

True patriotism, he argues, is moral labor. It involves calling out hypocrisy and protecting the weak. From the Voting Rights Act to Standing Rock, from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “promissory note” metaphor to today’s marches for justice, Rather sees protest as patriotism’s purest form. He reminds readers that loving America means never assuming its promise is fulfilled—it must be renewed generation after generation.

By positioning patriotism as a shared civic practice instead of a partisan weapon, Rather places the burden of democracy squarely where it belongs: on the conscience of citizens.

“Without a vibrant, fearless free press,” Rather warns, “our great American experiment may fail.” In his chapter on the press, he revisits the First Amendment’s historical roots and argues that journalism is democracy’s built-in safety valve against tyranny. Drawing on Orwell’s 1984, he shows how lies thrive when truth tellers are silenced. From the Founding Fathers’ insistence on checks and balances to modern-day assaults on “fake news,” his message is consistent: truth is an act of courage.

Media Evolution—and Erosion

Rather chronicles shifts in American media: the consolidation of corporate networks, the rise of talk radio after the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987, and the polarization brought on by outlets like Fox News. He exposes how propagandists turned the phrase “liberal bias” into a weapon to discredit the press itself. The digital era, he laments, has produced “more people talking about news and fewer doing original reporting.” This imbalance, he says, leaves democracy gasping for facts.

Courage in Journalism

He recounts instances where journalists failed—most notably, the press’s complicity in the Iraq War narrative about “weapons of mass destruction.” Yet he celebrates the Bob Woodwards and Ida Tarbells who held power to account. The goal isn’t infallibility, he writes, but integrity: “Our role is to ask hard questions, even when patriotism is used as a shield for deceit.”

“If we value truth,”

Rather declares, “we must fund and defend those who seek it—through subscriptions, through support, through vigilance.”

For readers, his advice is simple: subscribe instead of scrolling, question rather than reposting, and remember that cynicism is itself a form of surrender.

In one of the book’s most powerful chapters, Rather turns his lens inward to examine how inclusion reshapes the soul of a nation. When he was young, he confesses, “America was built for straight white men like me.” Over his lifetime, he has watched that narrow vision expand—painfully, unevenly, yet irreversibly. He traces parallel arcs: the fight for racial justice, the rise of feminism, and the emergence of LGBTQ rights.

From Tolerance to Inclusion

Tolerance, Rather says, is the beginning of equality, not the end. It allows us to “accept” others without engaging with them. Inclusion demands something harder: connection. He shares his early discomfort—and eventual transformation—around homosexuality, recalling when a longtime CBS colleague “came out” to him in fear. That moment, he says, taught him how courage multiplies: one person’s honesty invites another’s empathy.

Race, Gender, and Power

Turning to race, Rather dismantles myths of “post-racial America.” He revisits Detroit’s segregated schools and Justice Thurgood Marshall’s dissent in Milliken v. Bradley, which predicted today’s divided districts. Equality, he insists, can’t survive in gated communities or gated minds. He also pays tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose steady dismantling of gender discrimination proved that inclusion strengthens justice itself.

The chapter’s final insight echoes through the whole book: progress is a collective decision to widen the circle of we.

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion,” Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “but not to his own facts.” Rather devotes an entire section to warning that democracy’s survival depends on truth-based understanding. Through chapters on Science, Books, and Public Education, he argues that intellectual curiosity is an act of patriotism. To abandon learning is to renounce liberty.

Science as Stewardship

Science, for Rather, is America’s purest experiment. He profiles researchers like Ron Vale and Jennifer Doudna as modern explorers, likening their curiosity to the pioneers who crossed frontiers or astronauts who gazed back at Earth. When leaders deny evidence—from vaccines to climate change—they betray the very foundations of self-governance. Science, he writes, “makes a country worth defending.”

Education as Equality

Public education is another spiritual core. Rather recalls his strict but loving principal, Mrs. Simmons, at Love Elementary in Houston. She taught poor children discipline and pride. Those lessons became the ladder by which he climbed into journalism. He mourns its erosion today—de facto segregation, politicized textbooks, and underfunded teachers—and calls for renewed investment modeled on Finland’s and Singapore’s systems, where teachers are esteemed and learning equitable.

The Written Word as Compass

From Jefferson’s Rotunda library to Frederick Douglass’s self-education, Rather portrays reading as the democratic antidote to ignorance. In an age of misinformation, books remind us that knowledge has lineage—and cost. “A republic of laws,” he notes, “must be a republic of readers.”

Few chapters marry storytelling and moral urgency like “The Environment.” Rather begins with the famous ‘Earthrise’ photograph from Apollo 8—our blue planet hung in black space—and argues that no image better defines patriotism. Why? Because seeing Earth from afar erases borders and reminds us of shared stewardship. He describes it as a “mirror held to our collective soul.”

A Brief History of Environmental Awakening

The story unfolds from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring to the founding of the EPA and Earth Day in 1970. For Rather—who grew up hunting and fishing in rural Texas—these weren’t abstract policies; they were acts of love. He recounts his father’s rule that you “eat what you kill” and his childhood lesson to return a captured turtle to the bayou. Respect for nature, he realized, begins in backyards.

From Bipartisan Past to Polarized Present

Rather laments how environmentalism, once championed by Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt and George H. W. Bush, has become partisan. He recalls interviewing former secretary of state George Shultz, who warned that climate change deniers would one day be “mugged by reality.” The lesson: stewardship transcends ideology. It depends on leadership with courage to see beyond one election cycle.

The chapter closes where it began: with awe. “We were trained to go to the moon,” astronaut William Anders told Rather years later, “but what we discovered was the Earth.” Patriotism, Rather concludes, must rediscover that same reverence for home.

At the heart of What Unites Us is a conviction that service is democracy’s heartbeat. Rather invokes World War II memories—the neighborhood scrap drives, the loss of young men on foreign shores, and the quiet dignity of those on the home front—to show that helping others gives citizens meaning and nations strength. Service, he insists, has many forms: military duty, teaching, volunteering, mentoring, or simply voting with conscience.

From Wartime Sacrifice to Everyday Duty

He tells the story of Rodger Young, a nearly deaf soldier who died leading comrades to safety in the Solomon Islands, immortalized in song. For Rather, such stories aren’t relics but moral yardsticks. Visiting American cemeteries in Normandy and Hawaii, he finds in their silence a call to contemporary action.

Public Life and Private Conscience

From small-town councils in Texas to federal agencies in Washington, Rather argues that service-minded citizens—teachers, civil servants, Peace Corps volunteers—keep democracy functioning even when politicians falter. He contrasts their selflessness with modern leaders who “serve ambition rather than the public.” He praises figures like Congressman Seth Moulton, a decorated Marine, whose humility (“he didn’t even tell his parents about his Bronze Star”) embodies honorable leadership.

Service, Rather concludes, is not charity—it is reciprocity. It teaches humility, empathy, and courage. “A democracy without citizens who serve,” he writes, “is a nation adrift.”

In his closing chapters—“Audacity,” “Steady,” and “Courage”—Rather ties all values together. Character, he writes, is the engine of patriotism. It demands audacious dreams, steady principles, and courageous acts. Drawing on American history, he praises bold visionaries from Lincoln to John F. Kennedy to the scientists who eradicated smallpox. Audacity built railroads and sent humans to the moon; steadiness saved democracy in crises like Watergate; courage keeps us from sliding into despair.

Audacity and Innovation

Audacity, for Rather, means refusing to accept stagnation. He recounts Kennedy’s 1962 Rice University speech—“We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard”—as a model of civic imagination. Yet he warns that America’s boldness has withered amid cynicism and fear of failure. Reviving it requires leaders who take risks for the common good: building new energy systems, investing in science, and solving global problems like climate and disease.

Steadiness in Crisis

Rather’s credo, inherited from his father, is summed up in one word: steady. Whether reporting from JFK’s assassination or confronting network controversy, he turned to that word. Its lesson applies nationally: the United States survives because it “balances audacity with steadiness.” Even as democratic norms waver, he urges readers to remember our capacity for reform.

Courage, the book’s final virtue, closes the circle. You may fear, he admits, but courage means “going on anyhow.” America’s fate rests on millions of quiet acts of bravery—voting, teaching truth, protecting the vulnerable. In the end, patriotism is less about triumph than about persistence.