By Robert
Reich
From the US Holocaust Museum Collection |
We hear a lot about patriotism, especially around the Fourth of
July. But in 2016 we’re hearing about two very different types of patriotism.
One is an inclusive patriotism that binds us together.
The other is an exclusive patriotism that keeps others out.
Through
most of our history we’ve understood patriotism the first way. We’ve celebrated
the values and ideals we share in common: democracy, equal opportunity,
freedom, tolerance and generosity.
We’ve
recognized these as aspirations to which we recommit ourselves on the Fourth of
July.
This
inclusive patriotism prides itself on giving hope and refuge to those around
the world who are most desperate — as memorialized in Emma Lazarus’ famous
lines engraved on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your
huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
By
contrast, we’re now hearing a strident, exclusive patriotism. It asserts a
unique and superior “Americanism” that’s determined to exclude others beyond
our borders.
Donald
Trump famously wants to ban all Muslims from coming to America, and to build a
wall along the Mexican border to keep out Mexicans.
Exclusive
patriotism tells us to fear foreign terrorists in our midst — even though
almost every terrorist attack since 9/11 has been perpetrated by American
citizens or holders of green cards living here for a decade or more.
Republicans
in Congress reacted to the Orlando massacre with a proposal to ban all refugees
to the United States indefinitely. Rep. Brian Babin of Texas wants to place “an
immediate moratorium on all refugee resettlement programs … to keep America
safe and defend our national security.”
With
El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua convulsed in drug-related violence,
thousands of unaccompanied children and nearly as many mothers and children
have fled northward. But rather than welcome them, we’ve detained them at the
border and told others contemplating the journey to stay home.
Another
difference: Inclusive patriotism instructs us to join together for the common
good.
We’ve
understood this to require mutual sacrifice — from frontier settlers who helped
build one another’s barns, to neighbors who volunteered for the local fire
department, to towns and cities that sent off their boys to fight wars for the
good of all.
Such
patriotism requires taking on a fair share of the burdens of keeping America
going — including a willingness to pay taxes.
But
the strident voices of exclusive patriotism tell us that no sacrifice should be
required, especially by the well off.
Exclusive
patriotism celebrates the acquisitive individual and lone entrepreneur. It
tells us that taxes on the wealthy slow economic growth and deter innovation.
Trump
wants to reduce the highest income tax rate to 25 percent from today’s 39.6
percent. No matter that this would result in higher deficits or cuts in Social
Security, Medicare and programs for the poor. They’re supposedly good for
growth.
A
third difference: Inclusive patriotism has always sought to protect our
democracy — defending the right to vote and seeking to ensure that more
Americans are heard.
But
the new voices of exclusive patriotism seem not to care about democracy.
They’re willing to inundate it with big money that buys off politicians, and
they don’t seem to mind when politicians create gerrymandered districts that
suppress the votes of minorities or erect roadblocks to voting such as
stringent voter ID requirements.
Finally,
inclusive patriotism doesn’t pander to divisiveness, as does the alternative
patriotism that focuses on who “doesn’t belong” because of racial or religious
or ethnic differences. Inclusive patriotism isn’t homophobic or sexist or
racist.
To
the contrary, inclusive patriotism confirms and strengthens the “we” in
“we the people of the United States.”
So
will it be inclusive or exclusive patriotism? A celebration of “us” or contempt
for “them”?
Inclusive
patriotism is our national creed. It is born of hope. Mean-spirited, exclusive
patriotism is new to our shores. It is born of fear.
Let
us hope that this Fourth of July and in the months and years ahead we choose
inclusion over exclusion, hope over fear.
ROBERT B. REICH is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at
the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center
for Developing Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton
administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective
cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fourteen books,
including the best sellers “Aftershock, “The Work of Nations," and "Beyond
Outrage," and, his most recent, "Saving Capitalism." He is also
a founding editor of the American Prospect
magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, INEQUALITY FOR
ALL.