On this coming Fourth of July, it’s worth pondering the true meaning of American patriotism – as opposed to the malignant, distorted view of it propounded by Donald J. Trump.
For Trump, the central challenge of
American patriotism is to secure our borders. “Without borders, there can be no
nation,” he says.
But excluding foreigners has never
been a dominant part of American patriotism. For most of its existence America
has been relatively open to people from the rest of the world, especially those
fleeing tyranny and violence.
America’s core struggle has been one
of inclusion, not exclusion. We have strived to extend equal citizenship to
Native Americans, African Americans, women, and LGBTQs.
The poems of Walt Whitman and
Langston Hughes, and the songs of Woody Guthrie, expressed loving devotion to
America while turning that love into a demand for justice.
“This land is your land, this land
is my land” sang Guthrie. “Let America be America again,” pleaded Hughes:
“The land that never has been yet–/And yet must be – the land where everyone is
free./The land that’s mine – the poor man’s, Indian’s Negro’s, ME –.”
Trump’s patriotism centers on
symbolic displays of loyalty like standing for the national anthem and waving
the American flag.
But such displays haven’t been at
the center of American patriotism, either. Historically, American patriotism
has meant taking a fair share of the burdens of keeping the nation going.
This includes volunteering time and energy to improving the community and country. It has meant paying taxes in full rather than lobbying for lower taxes, seeking tax loopholes, or squirreling away money abroad.
It also means refraining from making
political contributions that corrupt our politics, and blowing the whistle on
abuses of power even at the risk of losing one’s job.
Real patriotism involves
strengthening our democracy – defending the right to vote and ensuring more
Americans are heard, not claiming without evidence that millions of voted
fraudulently and pushing for laws that make it harder for blacks and Latinos to
vote.
True patriots don’t inundate
government with industry lobbyists, attack the freedom of the press, criticize
judges who disagree with them, or fill the airwaves with lies. They don’t
direct employers to fire employees who exercise their freedom of speech.
True patriots don’t court foreign
dictators, and don’t excuse tyranny by denigrating America.
When asked whether Vladimir Putin is
a killer, Trump responded “you think our country’s so innocent?” When asked
about Turkish strongman Erdogan’s disdain for civil liberties, Trump said “when
the world looks at how bad the United States is, and then we go and talk about
civil liberties, I don’t think we’re a very good messenger.”
True patriots don’t fuel racist,
religious or ethnic divisions. They aren’t homophobic or sexist. To the
contrary, true patriots seek to confirm and strengthen and celebrate the “we”
in “we the people of the United States.”
Trump is the first United States
president to use the term “we” to refer only to his supporters. “My supporters
are the smartest, strongest, most hard working and most loyal that we have seen
in our countries history,” he tweeted recently. “As we get stronger, so does
our country.”
A majority of today’s Americans do
worry that the nation is losing its national identity. But that identity has
never been centered on our support for a particular president or his policies.
Nor, more fundamentally, has our
identity depended on the whiteness of our skin or the uniformity of our
ethnicity.
Our national identity has been our
shared ideals.
If we are losing our national
identity it is because we are losing those ideals: a commitment to the rule of
law, to our democratic institutions, to truth, to tolerance of our differences,
to equal political rights and equal opportunity, to participating in our civic
life and making necessary sacrifices for these ideals we hold in common.
We must share these ideals if we are
to have a functioning society. Without them, there is no America.
Trump is doing everything he can to
destroy these ideals. We must do everything we can to strengthen them.
This is the true test of our
patriotism.
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 fifteen books,
including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of
Nations," and "Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent, "The
Common Good," which is available in bookstores now. 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." He's co-creator of the Netflix
original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.
