Politics & Power Quote by Dennis Hastert

Patriotism, in Hastert's hands, is framed less as a set of ideals than as a pressure test: America is "great" because it can perform unity on cue, especially when the cameras are trained on grief. The line is built for the lectern after a calamity, when leaders are expected to launder chaos into meaning. Its genius is also its evasiveness. "Come together" is a warm verb that asks for emotion, not agreement. It implies a moral duty to fuse, temporarily, into one people - while sidestepping the messy questions tragedies raise about policy, accountability, or who was left unprotected in the first place.

The subtext is procedural. A former Speaker, Hastert speaks as a guardian of institutional stability: unity is not just healing, it's governance. In moments of national trauma, dissent can look like disrespect; this phrasing quietly disciplines criticism by casting it as the opposite of "greatness". There's an implicit bargaining chip: suspend conflict now, and you can argue later (though "later" has a way of never arriving).

Context matters because this is the kind of sentence politicians reach for in the post-Oklahoma City/post-9/11 tradition of civic consolations, when national identity is reconsolidated through shared mourning. It's also a reminder of how American greatness is often narrated retroactively - not as prevention, but as response. The country, the line suggests, earns its halo not by avoiding tragedy, but by looking unified in its aftermath.