My fellow Americans…
Yeah, let’s go with that. It’s a classic.
This is my first time running for President of the United States so I didn't know what to expect on that summer afternoon when I pulled up at the park we'd chosen for my campaign kick-off event.
We selected Silver Lake Meadow, on the edge of the reservoir on the east side of Los Angeles, only after running into roadblocks on locations I knew better. My campaign director Mieke Marple had gone in person and checked it out, and I had a vague recollection from previous visits to the area, but it was still a bit of an unknown.
On top of other, larger unknowns I felt anxiety:
What was I doing holding a kick-off event for a presidential campaign?
What was going to happen?
Would anyone even show up?
So it was with relief, and more, something almost approaching enchantment, that I stepped through the shrubbery enclosing the park to see two crisp white tents at one end of a long green lawn.
It had something of a summer wedding look. How lovely. How... relaxing. Who doesn’t like a summer wedding?
I had to remind myself I wasn’t there for a wedding. But I was there to ask America for its hand.
The podium with the American flags brought me back to the moment, to what I was really doing here.
Especially the Red, White, and Blue. That gave me pause. Are we really doing this? Who do I think I am to stand by an American flag?
I went over to the tents where a couple of friends and Dan Greaney USA team members were still getting things ready. They were setting up a second flag — and I could see more waiting to be unpacked. Several more.
If one was presumptuous, a bunch seemed almost, well, Trumpy. (It didn’t help that the boxes said “Made in China,” a la Trump.)
I went over to Mieke, who was busy with a million other things.
“I’m not sure we need so many flags,” I said.
She looked at me with puzzlement
“Maybe one’s enough. How many do we have?”
“Six,” she replied.
I looked dubious.
“It’s a political rally. American flags are classic.”
I hesitated.
“Trust me,” she continued. “I know visuals,” dismissing my doubts with a laugh.
Her laugh was reassuring, putting it all into perspective. As if to say, this is stage-fright, this is normal. Keep going.
She was right. Nerves were definitely part of it, but the Stars and Stripes were, too. The act of standing next to the US Flag — of, in effect, claiming it. It seemed presumptuous.
Deep down, in spite of my skepticism towards sentimentality, I have always taken the flag seriously.
In a sense, my campaign had started with the American flag.
If Trump’s reelection was the “inciting event” (we all talk like screenwriters now, right?) that moved my story into “rising action”, the real political epiphany occurred to me back in June of 2022.
I was spending the weeks before the 4th of July in a rented house on the Massachusetts coast. When I wasn’t seeing friends or family, I spent the beautiful days of an early New England summer indoors watching the House January 6 Committee.
One morning, after watching all the testimony I could stomach, I went for a walk down the historic town’s main street, passing the old cemetery where little American flags had been placed beside the headstones of veterans in observance of Memorial Day a few weeks before.
I had always seen the custom of decorating graves for Memorial Day as a touching, old-fashioned gesture of appreciation. But now those flags reminded me of the January 6 mob. The rioters had carried the symbol of our Nation, including desecrated versions of it with Trump’s name and scowling face.
They had claimed the flag for their distorted version of America; for their ill-defined patriotism.
Standing in front of that cemetery, I realized that I now regarded the flag with mixed feelings verging on disgust — and I resented that.
How could I feel that way?
This was the flag my father had fought under in WW2. The flag so many had fought under to preserve our country. The flag of the Union. It stood for something far nobler than Trumpism.
I went home and looked up the Gettysburg address, which I vaguely recalled as articulating a powerful definition of American patriotism. (Spoiler: it does).
President Lincoln justified sacrifices of the union soldiers by connecting their deaths to the profound moral principle in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal — and through historic importance of giving this principle life in a democratic system of government.
That’s it, I thought. That’s what real American patriotism is — a commitment to the equal dignity of all people and the democratic institutions that gives it life. We need to reclaim the flag for that.
So, naturally, I wrote a letter to the Biden White House urging the president to make a second Gettysburg address to reclaim the flag for democracy. I’m still waiting for a reply…
My experience at the cemetery and my re-reading of the Gettysburg address marked a turning point for me. I became convinced that the great principles of equality and democracy were at stake in the struggle with Trumpism, and that real patriotism required standing up for these ideals.
When Trump returned to office, largely through the obstruction of justice of the Roberts Supreme Court, as well as the tech CEOs and billionaires aligning themselves with a man who had already openly tried to destroy our democracy, I felt compelled to do something in defense of the values they were betraying.
That led me to post my first viral video in 2025 predicting Trump’s downfall, and now to the presidential campaign I had come to kick-off in 2026.
My actions were an expression of the version of American patriotism found in Lincoln’s Gettysburg address: a commitment to equal value of all people and of a democratic system of government to give that value life. My platform and everything else I was doing is rooted in that type of patriotism.
Of course, I didn’t remember all of this personal history while I was sizing up the flag situation the morning of my first campaign rally. I was mainly just embarrassed. But if standing up for the flag meant standing next to it, then so be it.
I swallowed and accepted Mieke’s pushback.
Six flags it would be.
***
Our team finished the set up, and the first few audience members started filtering in. Old friends, at first, and it was wonderful to see them. Then some strangers I was very happy to meet.
Darth Vader, Elsa, and Uncle Sam even stopped by to show support.
And then, as the time for the official kick-off approached, the filtering stopped. This was it. The devoted people who’d shown up early were the entire audience — maybe 30 or so.
Quite a bit smaller than I, at least, had expected.
Was this a failure? Was it sad? I worried.
We nudged the small audience as close to the podium as we could — of course, nobody wanted to be too close. This is something that I, as a lifetime closest-seat-to-the-door-sitter, well understood.
Mieke Marple stepped up to the mic and got the ball rolling with poise and conviction.
Then Brent Forrester, an old friend from The Simpsons and a legendary comedy writer, performer and teacher, gave me a million-watt introduction that would have made Lincoln blush.
And then it was my turn.
I started a bit awkwardly, but forgot myself as I went into my speech, which connected my campaign to the principles articulated in the Gettysburg address. I forgot my self-doubt because I don’t doubt these principles.
I don’t doubt the equal value of all people.
I don’t doubt the importance of democracy to give this principle life.
I don’t doubt that these principles are worth standing up for — even if that standing up happens in front of way too many American flags.
I wrapped up my speech and our small-but-mighty audience reacted warmly. They seemed to like it — to share in the sentiments I expressed.
Then I remembered why I am doing this. For All.
A lovely, joyful mood seemed to come over the event, rather like a summer wedding after all.
-Dan Greaney (@dangreaneyusa)
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READ MORE: WIRED FEATURE ON MY CAMPAIGN RALLY
Thanks to Wired and @milesklee for featuring our humble-but-mighty Presidential Campaign Launch.
www.wired.com/story/simpsons-writer-dan-greaney-holds-his-first-presidential-campaign-rally
