Writing in 1967, sociologist Robert Bellah considered the United States to have faced three times of trial. The first trial was concerned with our independence and whether a democratic nation could be wrought from a British monarchy. The second trial was about slavery and the question of an inclusive liberal democracy in a diverse nation. The third and current trial, which Bellah considered to have overtaken the unaddressed elements of the second, is whether the United States can be a beacon of liberal democracy in a revolutionary and backsliding world.

It remains to be seen if we are the people who can pass this third trial. We are in the throes of it. Midterm elections this fall, Supreme Court decisions next year, responses to the inevitable peaceful protests and acts of civil disobedience, the incidence of mass violence, and the legitimacy of democratic institutions and processes will signal to which side the scale tilts once we are through this period of disruption.

The outcome is uncertain; we cannot blithely assume that the emergence of a stronger creedal America is inevitable. Success will hinge on our ability to resist revanchist ethnonationalist and exclusionary narratives and to embrace a civic identity dedicated to an equality that respects our racial, ethnic, religious, regional, and ideological differences. We, in our own day, are testing whether a nation so dedicated can long endure.