There are two forms of nationalism. There is the aspirational nationalism of people, ranging from Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan to Joe Biden, who emphasize that America is not only a land but was founded to embody and spread the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address. Then there is the ancestors and homeland nationalism, traditionally more common in Europe, of Donald Trump and Vance, the belief that America is just another collection of people whose job is to take care of our own. . . .
Trump and Vance have to rebut the idea that America is the embodiment of universal ideals. If America is an idea, then Black and brown people from all over the world can become Americans by coming here and believing that idea. If America is an idea, then Americans have a responsibility to promote democracy. We can’t betray democratic Ukraine in order to kowtow to a dictator like Vladimir Putin. If America is an idea, we have to care about human dignity and human rights. You can’t have a president go to Saudi Arabia, as Trump did this month, and effectively tell them we don’t care how you treat your people. . . .
If America is built around a universalist ideal, then there is no room for the kind of white identity politics that Trump and Stephen Miller practice every day. There is no room for the othering, zero-sum, us/them thinking, which is the only kind of thinking Trump is capable of. There’s no room for Trump’s immigration policy, which is hostile to Latin Americans but hospitable to the Afrikaners whose ancestors invented apartheid.
As I have written here many times, I consider myself an American patriot. But to me that doesn't mean loving American as it happens to be, or because of who happens to live here. I love the idea that America stands for, and our ongoing struggle to make that idea real.
2 comments:
The older I get, the less faith I have in America as a nation, and see it being weighed down more and more by its own mountain of long-unaddressed flaws which just grow worse as they continue to be ignored.
Everything good that "America stands for" is far better embodied in other peer countries at this point.
If America is built around a universalist ideal, then there is no room for the kind of white identity politics that Trump and Stephen Miller practice every day. There is no room for the othering, zero-sum, us/them thinking, which is the only kind of thinking Trump is capable of. There’s no room for Trump’s immigration policy, which is hostile to Latin Americans but hospitable to the Afrikaners whose ancestors invented apartheid.
For there being "no room" for those things, we sure do have a lot of them. It's almost as if we actually DO have room for those things.
Which would then logically imply that America is NOT actually built around a universalist ideal.
Which... matches up extremely well with our actual history. We love to TALK about our supposed ideals, but at the end of the day, those lofty notions usually just turn out to be just talk.
For the first century of our history, we patted ourselves on our back for our love of "freedom" while maintaining the largest slave population in the world.
Then for another century after that, we continued to congratulate ourselves for that self same love of "freedom" while engaging in rampant Imperialism, snatching up overseas territories left and right, slaughtering indigenous peoples wholesale, and perpetuating a racist system of repression and exploitation that only JUST rose above the limit of actual slavery, with African Americans being technically free, but still unequivocally second-class citizens. "All men are created equal" my eye!
We love to applaud our supposed religious neutrality, but the actual reality has always been unofficial Protestant hegemony.
We love to boast about our "democracy", but our politics have been a farcical mess since our country's inception. We only have two political parties, for crying out loud! We have "winner-takes-all" elections instead of proportional representation! Our history is chock full of literal political dynasties, gross nepotism both familial and professional, and a deeply entrenched moneyed oligarchy! We sent Army soldiers to shoot striking coal miners, for goodness' sake! We're the country that had The Gilded Age, where nakedly corrupt "Robber Barons" dictated their whims to a puppet government! How is THAT democracy, I ask you?
We've been bloviating about our supposed "ideals" for a quarter of a millennia now, without ever coming CLOSE to actually embodying them!
When is our supposed "struggle to make the idea real" going to actually pay real dividends?!? When is America not just going to "stand for" things in the form of pretty but empty words, and instead actually live by the principles we claim to hold?!?
Especially given how many other countries, ALL OF THEM POORER THAN US, manage to live up to our ideals far better than we manage to!
You are PROUD of America because it preaches an empty sermon? Then you should be STRUCK DUMB IN AWE at all the other countries who actually back up their lofty words with action! We ought to be embarrassed of ourselves, and yet all we EVER manage to be is boastful and arrogant!
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