Our Divisive ‘Patriotism’
Terry H. Schwadron
July 5, 2021
Hey, its July 4 weekend and time to celebrate American democracy “patriotically.”
The usual sloganeering, flag-waving and fireworks to mark American history seems this time to have landed at a particularly divisive moment.
Everything about the holiday weekend seemed off-balance, in part because of the coming out from the long shadow of coronavirus, but also because Americans can not agree on our past any more than we can agree on our present.
Both President Joe Biden and Donald Trump delivered messages mixing hope with messages reflecting political lean — only they were totally opposite. Biden talked of beating back the effects of pandemic, a flood of returning jobs, and the resiliency of American spirit; at a Florida rally, Trump insisted that the holiday “will not be canceled” by the politics of Biden and Democrats, saying “American founders and patriots “will never be purged from history or canceled from our hearts.”
Biden told reporters to skip all their “negative” questions about what 20 years of war in Afghanistan are supposed to mean now that he — and Trump — have pulled out American troops. He wants us to look away from any chaos on the border, or refusals of a good third of the nation to shun vaccines, or the constant gridlock on Capitol Hill. Then he invited 1,000 guests to gather at the White House for his first public gathering to celebrate a “return to normal” because nothing feels so patriotic as arguing over whether a mask is a partisan symbol.
“Patriotism” has become a political hot potato of its own.
Disputed History
Even the planning for a 250th anniversary for the United States is in hot water, reports The New York Times,with fights among historians about how lovingly to paint the founders of 1776, and how current-day activists are abusing the “1776” banner to attack the country’s own Capitol over disputed, if unsubstantiated election fraud.
“These days, scholars depict the Revolution less as a glorious liberty struggle than as a hyper-violent civil war that divided virtually every segment of colonial society against itself, and left many African Americans and Native Americans worse off, and less free,” wrote The Times. “Today’s historians aren’t in the business of writing neat origin stories — complexity, context and contingency are their watchwords. But in civic life, where we stake our beginnings matter.”
Our deep-seated racial divisions continue to leak out over almost every policy discussion affecting policing, hiring, income, taxes, education and health, and we find ourselves wrestling quite literally about whom to honor in public statues.
We are at odds over how much being “pro-America” means shunning international responsibilities, even at the cost of human rights and human lives in other countries.
And we see immigration sought by so many as a threat rather than a welcoming of new Americans.
Still, the loudest voices for “patriotism” are those that increasingly ignore the fate of actual and would-be Americans for some tainted, overly positive view of our own history. Listening to this crowd, now largely a majority view among Republicans in many states, we should actively limit voting in our democracy, we should strip universities of academic freedoms in the name of preserving conservative thought, we should insist on teaching American history as a gauzy unfurling of individual exceptionalism, ignoring those left behind,
In other words, we should look right past slavery, reject “critical race theory” and the continuous ruinous record of racism, and legal and economic inequity in our country, and rally around statues built to honor Confederate generals who actually fought against democracy. Where’s the critical thinking there?
It’s a view of “patriotism” that this week saw Republicans in Congress still fighting against joining a body, now a select committee in Congress, to determine just who and how that Jan 6 insurrection came about.
Division in Every Direction
It was a July 4 in which we had to bring notice that singer Vanessa Williams, a former Miss America, was publicly celebrating by singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which has become known as the “Black national anthem” in an alternative view of national patriotism. It was a July 4 in which people in different towns argued about who exactly was supposed to march in parades, or whether flags say what they mean, or even whether we’re flying the right flags to be inclusive.
In the end, of course, Trump used his call for patriotism to celebrate himself and his Don Quixote quest to take back the presidency by acclamation. This is the same Trump whose company was indicted this week for cheating on taxes meant to support this democracy, and Trump played victim rather than owning up to anything resembling a crime.
It was a July 4 in which faculty and students in public universities in Florida were receiving notices about having to report their political views, another holiday in which this government is still seeking to reunite hundreds or thousands of children separated from parents at the border, another Fourth in which gunfire in the streets will be celebrated rather than limited.
It was a July 4 for politicians to go home and regroup for more partisan bickering, apparently choosing again to listen only to voices with which they already agree.
And it will be another Fourth of July that means nothing to the rest of the world, much of which is still looking to the United States to live up to its promises of concrete help as well as basking in being a Reagan-esque shining city on the hill.
##