You can't have a United States if you are telling some folks that

Hear the voice of Bruce Springsteen, troubadour of the common man and poet of the working class, who proclaimed: “You can’t have a United States if you are telling some folks that they can’t get on the train. There is a cracking point where a society collapses.” These words strike not as melody but as warning, carrying within them the wisdom of history and the pulse of justice. For Springsteen speaks not merely of trains, but of opportunity itself—the shared journey toward dignity, equality, and belonging. To bar some from the ride is to tear apart the very fabric of unity.

The meaning is clear and eternal. A society can endure poverty, hardship, even disaster, but it cannot endure exclusion. When one part of the people is told, “You do not belong,” or, “You cannot rise with us,” the promise of unity becomes a lie, and the fractures spread. The train is a symbol of progress, of mobility, of participation in the great collective journey. If the doors of that train are closed to some, then the dream of a United States is but an empty phrase, a shell soon to crumble beneath the weight of its contradictions.

History offers us a burning example: the age of segregation in America. For generations, Black citizens were told in law and in practice that they could not “get on the train”—they were barred from schools, jobs, neighborhoods, even the ballot box. The nation proclaimed liberty, yet denied it to millions. This hypocrisy led to unrest, protest, and eventually the Civil Rights Movement. The marches of Selma, the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., the cries of countless unnamed voices—all bore witness to Springsteen’s truth: deny some a seat, and the whole train lurches toward collapse.

Nor is this warning bound only to America. Consider France before the Revolution of 1789. The aristocracy consumed wealth and privilege, while peasants starved and were told they had no voice in governance. Here, too, the train of progress left behind the many while carrying the few. The result was not stability but explosion—chaos that toppled kings and redefined a nation. Again, we see that when opportunity is denied, when exclusion is written into the order of things, the cracking point arrives, and society itself is torn apart.

Springsteen, as an artist, has always sung of those left behind: the factory worker, the immigrant, the poor, the disillusioned. His words are rooted in the lives of those who felt the door of the train closing before them. In his voice we hear not only lament but warning, a call to vigilance. For the strength of any nation lies not in wealth or weapons, but in its ability to bring all of its people along in the journey. Leave some at the station, and the promise of unity becomes a dangerous illusion.

The lesson for us is direct and undeniable: inclusion is not charity; it is survival. A United States—or any nation—cannot endure if its benefits, its opportunities, its rights are reserved for only a portion of its people. Justice is not an ornament to be displayed, but the very engine that keeps the train moving forward. To ignore this truth is to invite collapse, for divisions will widen until they shatter the whole.

What, then, must we do? We must keep the doors open—to education, to work, to healthcare, to dignity, to voice in the public square. We must watch for those who are left behind and bring them aboard, not out of pity but out of recognition that their fate and ours are bound together. And we must teach future generations that unity is not inherited, but built daily, through choices of fairness, compassion, and courage.

Thus remember: the train of progress cannot run half-empty, carrying only the privileged while the rest are left behind. A society that denies passage to any of its people will reach the cracking point, where collapse is certain. Bruce Springsteen’s words are both song and prophecy: if we would keep the promise of a United States—or of any nation—we must ensure that all can ride together, side by side, on the long road to freedom.