This week, optimism billowed over the University of Oklahoma. On Monday, 17 politicians and intellectuals from various political bents gathered for a bipartisan forum on how to solve the partisan gridlock in the American government.

The forum was an energizing and peaceful distraction from the raucous caucuses in Iowa and New Hampshire. There was something refreshing about witnessing so many politicians of varying persuasions gather and formulate a united perspective on the partisan dagger dividing America’s national government.

Another welcome surprise was the participants’ ability to articulate, many with clarity and eloquence, the host of alarming crises stalking the United States. America in crisis quickly emerged as a theme of the hour-long forum.

Angus King, a former governor of Maine, likened current conditions in America to pre-World War ii conditions in Europe. “I think we’re facing a similar kind of challenge today, only it’s a slow-motion catastrophe,” he said. “We don’t have troops pouring across our neighbors’ borders. But we are facing a kind of slow-motion challenge that, if we don’t address, our children and grandchildren are going to look at us and say, What in the [world] were you doing when this country went down?”

How many of America’s leaders are setting this nation’s problems in that kind of context?

America is at a tipping point in history, warned King. “[W]e’re at a place where what we’ve been doing … in recent years isn’t working. And if we continue, we feel … that we could go into a period of permanent decline.”

David Abshire, president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency, painted a similarly bleak picture. “Let me say that I think because the nation is at a turning point, this nation is at risk,” he cautioned. “I’ve been around Washington for 50 years, and I’ve never been at a time we’ve lost our strategic freedom of action, our budgetary freedom of action, our financial freedom of action, our standing in the world simultaneous[ly]. And when I studied strategy before I went to West Point, if you lose your unity of effort and your freedom of action, you’re going to suffer defeat.”

The collective sense of America’s impending demise was summarized in the joint statement produced by the panelists and read by former Senator Sam Nunn: “America is in danger. Our ability to meet and solve the problems that face us is seriously compromised. National surveys reveal that an unprecedented seven out of ten citizens believe that life for their children will not be as good as their own. So we are heading in the wrong direction.”

From one end of the table to the other, this panel of experienced politicians presented a refreshingly honest, if bleak, outlook of America’s future. But somehow, despite the strong language, vivid imagery and alarming comparisons, it was evident that the depth and true nature of the problems threatening America failed to gain traction in the minds of the audience. This was because of the contradictory nature of the overall message of the panelists: The parallels with history were frightening, the facts real and the warnings stark, but permeating these remarks was an alluring sense of optimism—a sense that everything was going to be all right, that somehow, for some reason, the United States would prevail and the crises would subside.

This optimism blunted the jabs of the profound warnings.

“The bottom line is this country is the most wonderful country that anybody has ever created,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg crooned at one point. “We have done some amazing things in the last 235 years domestically and to help the rest of the world.” Similar sentiment exuded from the panelists for the duration of the forum.

“We are a country of optimists,” Mayor Bloomberg continued. “We believe we can do everything.”

True—optimism is essential to success. It can precipitate creativity and drive, inspire perseverance and resourcefulness, and fuel us on our way to achieving our hopes and dreams. Optimism can motivate us to hurdle obstacles; it can mean the difference between winning and losing, success and failure.

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement,” said Helen Keller. “Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” A spirit of optimism, individually or nationally, is an essential component of victory.

However, for optimism to be a force for success and victory, personally or nationally, it must be backed by action. Optimistic platitudes are meaningless if they don’t inspire and demand action.

Take war, for example. Optimistic rhetoric does not win battles. Battles are won when optimistic leaders communicate an optimistic message of victory to optimistic soldiers who then translate the message into action. Action wins wars.

Beyond the general call for greater bipartisanship in U.S. politics and a handful of other vague suggestions, the panelists at the forum proposed few strong, deliberate actions. They lacked strategy and real power of conviction.

Optimism alone does not lead to victory or success. In fact, optimism not supported by action can be dangerous because it can foster complacency—and complacency too often precedes failure or defeat.

Throughout the hour-long session there were multiple references to America’s historic ability to rise and meet danger. “America, as a nation, historically has always risen when we’re in trouble, and we have always managed to unite when we’re in trouble,” declared former Senator Sam Nunn on behalf of the panel, “and we believe that we will be able to do that again.”

The optimistic inference that America will prevail today merely because it has always prevailed is misleading. Worse, it inspires a dangerous complacency.

Truly, the United States has a grand history of uniting and standing strong against trials—as under Washington or Lincoln, or during World War ii. An inert optimist, like the 17 participants in Monday’s forum, will look back on that history with a mere hope it will simply repeat itself. But a genuine optimist—a person sincerely interested in success and victory—will look back on that history, study it, and then act on the lessons. The genuine optimist underpins optimism with action.

What type of optimist are you? If you rank yourself among the latter, and you want to learn how and why the United States has prevailed against calamity in times past, you need to read The United States and Britain in Prophecy.