Donald Trump’s Mandate: Make America Beautiful
By Danielle Franz
Patriotism is hot again. As America approaches its 250th anniversary, a new generation of young Americans is rediscovering pride in the nation’s founding ideals.
Instagram feeds are flooded with Ralph Lauren flag sweaters, vintage denim, and red-white-and-blue-coded looks that signal not rebellion, but reverence. The cool girls aren’t rolling their eyes at America—they’re leaning in, posting country music quotes and Fourth of July photos with pride. This isn’t kitsch or irony. It’s a real cultural shift. Far from the apathy or cynicism that has defined recent decades, today’s youth are embracing a renewed sense of identity rooted in the values that have guided this country since 1776.
This milestone is both a moment for celebration and an opportunity to lay the groundwork for the next 250 years. With a renewed focus on preserving what makes this nation great and beautiful, we can ensure that America thrives for generations to come.
This desire for something enduring and rooted in values is not confined to national pride. It extends to how we approach the care of our land, our natural resources, and the environment we leave for future generations. Just as we are witnessing a return to traditional faith practices, there is also a growing call for a return to a more grounded, common-sense approach to environmental stewardship.
Enter President Trump’s executive order to Make America Beautiful Again. Signed at the kick-off of America250 celebrations at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, this initiative prioritizes key policy areas such as water conservation, ecosystem restoration, and regenerative agriculture. By forming a commission to explore policy pathways, this executive order will streamline collaboration between federal agencies and make good conservation policy possible again.
You would be hard-pressed to find an American who doesn’t want clean air, clean water, and a healthy natural environment to call home. Our nation’s natural beauty has always been a sense of pride, and our forefathers, across political differences, sought to protect it. From George Washington’s legacy as a conservation-minded farmer to the infamous Conservation President, Theodore Roosevelt, our country’s history is full of conservationists. In fact, environmental stewardship is simply woven into the fabric of what it means to be an American.
That’s why signing an executive order to conserve our natural heritage was the perfect fit for a celebration of our nation’s anniversary.
Unfortunately, another part of the story is that our environmental discourse has been hijacked by the same forces that have politicized every corner of American life—virtue-signaling theatrics and woke politics, leaving behind the fundamental values that once united us. A stubborn fixation on climate change, rather than taking care of our backyards and stewarding our natural resources, has driven our original conservationists away from the conversation entirely. Today, when one thinks “environmentalist,” a picture of young people protesting in the street or vandalizing priceless art—not a portrait of a sportsman working to control animal populations or a farmer carefully tending his land—probably comes to mind. That’s what happens when you replace stewardship with slogans and turn conservation into pronoun environmentalism.
The Trump Administration has flipped this assumption on its head by leading the charge to restore common-sense solutions to the environmental conversation, with action grounded in the principles of local empowerment, personal responsibility, and sustainable stewardship.
Nothing embodies conservative values more than conserving what is good and valuable in our nation—our natural resources, our countryside, our traditions, and our way of life. These are the legacies we must protect for future generations, from our stunning national parks to our bountiful farmland that has long sustained our communities. President Trump demonstrated this commitment during his first term by signing conservation legislation such as the Great American Outdoors Act and both iterations of the Save Our Seas Act.
As we celebrate the birth of our nation, let’s work to preserve what is good, beautiful, and true by empowering communities, reconnecting citizens with the land, and honoring the principles that have long defined America. They are the bedrock of the nation, and it’s time to reclaim and champion them once more. By doing so, President Trump will Make America Beautiful Again and chart a course that honors our past while securing our future.
Danielle Franz is the chief executive officer at the American Conservation Coalition (ACC), the largest conservative environmental organization in the country. Follow her on X @DanielleBFranz.