President opens the year with a proclamation about himself.

New Year’s Day. The country rolls over a digit. The fireworks come down. The first official action, on the first official day of the second year of the second term, is a proclamation. The proclamation is called the National Day of Patriotic Devotion.

Buddy. Patriotic Devotion. To what.

You read the text, and the answer is almost there. There is a paragraph about the country. There is a paragraph about the founders. There is, folks, a generous paragraph about the President, the things the President has done, and the things the President will do. The country is the setting. The President is the star. The proclamation is a press release with a federal seal on it.

I have been a pit boss. I have written employee-of-the-month plaques. I have worked in joints where the boss’s grandkid won employee of the month for the third quarter in a row. I know what self-promotion in an institutional voice sounds like. It sounds like this.

The 1989 New Year’s proclamations talked about freedom. The 2003 ones talked about troops overseas. The 2010 ones talked about service. The 2026 one talks about a man. His policies. His leadership. His era.

You can sign a proclamation about the country. You can sign a proclamation about yourself. The country is what one of those words is supposed to mean. That’s the trick. You devote yourself to the country, you wave your flag, you go home and feed your kids. You devote yourself to the guy, you have left the country and walked into a different building entirely.

I’m arguing with the television. The television is on a federal letterhead.