I’ve been trying to find the right message for my first post-election essay. Looking for the perfect words, the most moving theme, what people need to hear. I’ve been riding on a seismograph of emotion, up from crying on the phone with my mom to angry debating with a stranger in the dorm lounge, down to denial and shock, and finally finding a positive medium where I can find contentedness in my faith in America’s resilience. My father encouraged me with a reminder of my own strength and that of my political brethren. We have been hurt, there’s no doubt, but we’re not dead.

I know that my party is not done. While we’re going to have it rough for a few years, fighting to balance seemingly unchecked liberal control in all three branches of the government, we can do it. We should’ve known all along that we’d never go down without a fight; this election was just one round in a series of many matches to come. Let’s call it a warm-up. We are going to regroup after this loss, pick up our things, center ourselves, and move on. We will use this defeat as a wakeup call, alerting our members with a call of duty. We have a job to do now, and it’s time to get to work.

All we need is a strong leader to emerge. That has been our downfall over the past few years, no impressive orator, no head honcho, no Reagans or Buckleys or Lincolns. I don’t know who it will be or where the person will come from, but I’ll be looking. Maybe Palin, maybe someone we haven’t heard from yet, maybe someone we won’t expect. No matter who it is, the bottom line is that this person needs to make him or herself known soon. In the meantime, the rest of us need to man up, get together in our towns, and prepare our revolution.

If you’re a conservative reading this, you know exactly what I’m talking about and you’re with me. If you’re a liberal reading this, you think I’m crazy. But you’re not my audience right now, so that’s ok. This is a message to Sean Hannity’s “Conservative Underground.” We’re in it together, and we’re going to win. It has started already. Walking to my first class this morning, I had an unspoken bond with everyone I passed wearing black. We’d nod a somber nod to one another, and no one else seemed to see it. If secrecy and stealth missions are the future of the Republican Party, so be it. We’re good at stuff like that.

As scared as I am for the future of our country and of our party, I am hopeful, because I know how strong we are. We have stood against evil before and won, and those are the battles that trained us. Our courage has been fortified in the fires of war, our faith is founded in God’s will, and our characters have been tested, more tryingly in recent months than perhaps ever before, and have passed with flying colors. Our patriotism is not this easily snuffed, and we know that America is the greatest nation on earth, one well worth the battle ahead of us. We have fought for Her glory before. We will do it again, starting today.

Do not be discouraged. Instead, take this as a warning of things to come if we continue to do nothing. If we all still want prosperity and peace and reform, failure is not an option at this point. Dress your wounds and come with me.

While we’ve still got the right to bear them, I’m bellowing a call to arms. Republicans of America: It’s go time.

The Olympics. The world comes together every four years to pit our strongest, fastest, lithest, most tenacious athletes against each other to see which country’s youth is truly golden. Although we are in competition, no other event seems to breed as much international unity as these games. Individual patriotism, however deep-seated, does not overpower camaraderie between mismatched flags. For just a few days, we do not see other countries as debt collectors or political allies or roadblocks of our affairs. We are all just humans, rooting for our teams and experiencing every loss, victory, injury, and fairy tale in tandem.

But every night, after I turn off the instant replays and national anthems, I remember that everyone hates America. Isn’t that right? We’re the international bad guys, the global heavy-weights of idiocy and pollution and general pig-headedness? That’s the impression I get from many politicians and average members of the US populace alike. And whenever I speak of my own devotion to the stars and stripes, it automatically makes me a conductor of the machine that is American Evil.

Since when did it become an American trait to hate America? We’re all so ashamed of our nation, taught to ignore anything good we do. Our schools sucks, we love war, we’re nuclear energy hypocrites, we stick our big, democratic nose where it’s said to be unwelcome, and we’re a bunch of fatties. Focusing on the things previously listed, I’d hate us, too. But this is not the definition of America.

I’ve always considered myself a mild patriot. While I’d like to claim that I’m whole-heartedly proud of my country, almost to the point of nationalism, and that I wear my passion on my red, white, and blue sleeve, my patriotism has been blasted by the anti-American epithets and bitter cynicism that fly under the name of liberal media, and it has been a struggle to keep my grip on it. My mother, moved to tears by the words of a Frenchman, seemed to have forgotten, or tucked so deeply away, her love for her country that a foreigner had to remind her that we do good things. While this new French president’s speech was incredible, my mother’s reaction to it made me sad, because the duty of inspiring patriotism in US citizens’ hearts should not fall in the hands of anyone who does not reside within our own borders. Instead of beaming with pride, we tear down our nation from within. How might we stand when we don’t even support ourselves?

It should not come just once every four years that we feel something besides hatred for our great land. Call us what you will, but our country is a source of hope for the rest of the world, a powerhouse of opportunity, and a safeguard for anyone pledging allegiance. I don’t claim American flawlessness, but we are not the soul of blackness our own people make us out to be. And what saddens me most is that this reputation is one we have created ourselves. And only we can undo it.

I am not ashamed that I well up whenever our anthem plays for a gold medalist our flag has bred. I am not ashamed that we are more fortunate than anyone else in the world. I am not ashamed that we are strong. I am proud to be an American, and I am proud to have such pride.

Stop letting shame define Americanism. It is the antithesis of our foundation, and a return to our roots is apparently long overdue.