The rockets red glare, the bombs are bursting in the air…

Familiar words to Americans who watch baseball or attend games these days who hear this partial stanza before the words play ball are announced.

And maybe if you walked down the street anywhere, stopped and asked those you meet under 30, who Francis Scott Key was and why he wrote those words and to what song they belong, well prepare for a pause and a look back that says it sure doesn’t sound like any part of today’s modern music mix, once described by a commentator as pornography with drums.

Many Long Island towns host parades several times a year. The marchers often wear patches on the uniforms of the armed service branch indicating which units and branches they served when they put themselves at risk for the nation.

They fought to protect and defend Americans, including those who have no idea why anyone would try to see anything by the dawn’s early light except a yellow cab or an Uber after a long night spent waiting–and often finding–love walk through the door at 2 a.m..

The marchers hold the American flag—the Stars and Stripes–high. The words to the music played by accompanying marching bands speak only of the glory of the nation credited with being the arsenal of democracy that saved the world 80 years ago in the most significant event in the planet’s history, World War II.

The nation whose nuclear shield over Europe has kept American troops from–for a fourth time in one hundred years–going to fight on that continent. And the nation without whose strength the enemies of democracy might have ended all life on Earth.

Pretty strong stuff. But very well understood in the towns, villages and hamlets of suburbia.

Those taxpayers know that the rioting property destroying children—who have no sense of history–vilifying America and its allies as their parents spend up to $125,000 a year—tuition, room and books, travel, food, pocket cash, and daddy’s credit card—will never be marching in any parades to commemorate the dead of war or the heroes that will never come home.

The marchers in those parades–who never even thought they’d be welcome to go through the front door of those fancy campuses—know the spoiled and pampered will never pay the price for anything.

They never have. Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, and their other colleagues never paid the price for past injustices. It was the people who marched in the parades, who took the step forward at service induction centers, who pinned the police officers’ shield to the chest, picked up a Halligan tool as volunteer or full-time firefighters, and stood as nurses and techs waiting for the most seriously injured to be brought in.

Should we have a new national security emergency requiring a show of military strength, Columbia and Harvard campuses won’t be empty. But lots of Long Island homes will.

Democracy is a messy way of running things. People argue. They disagree. They yell. They scream. There is disorder. Factions. Frenzy. Victory. Defeat.

But now, we as a nation have a moment of pride, of unity. The flag waves high at the Olympic games. We keep winning, and our heroes represent the greatness of our promise: men, women, black, and white wear the red, white, and blue as they scoop up medals of athletic greatness. This is our moment, a moment Americans need. We hear our song.

The people who will decide the election believe this is the Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave. It always was. It always will be. They are proud again. And they will vote.