Should the American Left reclaim Patriotism?

Great Debates
1

I don’t know exactly when it happened - my guess is that it was in the aftermath of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, when the “patriotic” thing to do was to blindly support the wars? But I could be wrong, it may have happened even earlier.

Regardless of when it happened, there’s no question that it did. At some point in the relatively recent past, overt displays of Patriotism became strongly associated with the Right, which has allowed this narrative to develop, that people on the Left hate this country while people on the Right are its only true defenders.

Of course, that’s nonsense. Many people on the Left love this country and want to see it prosper, which is why they call out things that they view as problems and try to work out solutions to resolve them. The Right, meanwhile, is abandoning many of the values that make America worthwhile in the first place, all in the name of taking power.

Since Kamala has started her campaign, I have noticed a few things that she has done which makes me wonder if she is purposefully trying to buck this trend. Her very first campaign ad presented the election as a choice between fear and hatred on one side, and freedom on the other. Her recent statements about the Union Station protestors called them out as anti American, anti Patriotic.

Personally, I think that’s wonderful. Just because the other side is braying over a corrupted form of Freedom (we can call it FreeDumb) doesn’t mean that the core concept of individual liberty is a bad one. Likewise, criticizing bad things America does doesn’t mean we have to ignore the progress that we have made, or that we cannot be proud of how far we have come while knowing we have to go further.

I hope this is the start of a larger trend, because I think this is exactly what we need to start rallying people around more liberal causes.

2

The liberals and even progressives can be patriotic, but we can’t easily go into hyper-patriotism, since that gets into nationalism. Overuse of patriotic symbols is a key aspect of authoritarianism. There’s a reason why other countries think the pledge of allegiance seems far right.

Especially in the current climate of patriotic one-upsmanship, we are at a disadvantage. We have to do this while simultaneously standing by thode who burn the flag or kneel or whatever.

We have to take protesting, questioning authority, pointing out flaws and all of that, and make it quintessentially American and, thus, patriotic.

3

Allowing right-wingers to co-opt patriotism and freedom of speech as go-to issues has been self-defeating for the Left.

At the very least, damping down disdain for recognizing military service and flag displays would be a good start.

Don’t be afraid to show pride in the positives, and emphasize the phony nature of “patriotism” on the part of Trump and his followers. Wrapping yourself in the flag while sneering at prisoners of war and embracing un-American worship of dictators isn’t at all patriotic.

4

Can you define ‘nationalism’? What precisely are you worried that we would start doing if we got too patriotic?

I agree that you don’t want to let any political idea - love or appreciation for your own country being one but that goes for anything we might believe in - override our reason. So that would be my reason for opposing hyper-patriotism - the risk that we would be blinded to real flaws that we’d otherwise be able to rationally examine.

But I’m not sure if that’s what you mean by ‘nationalism’ or if there’s something else you’re worried about.

I don’t know that we do need to support people just because they kneel or burn flags.

I didn’t support Kaepernick because he kneeled, I supported him because of the goals and ideas he wanted to bring attention to by kneeling. If someone else knelt during the anthem because they wanted to protest vaccine mandates I would think they are an idiot and I certainly would not support them.

Yeah, I agree, and this is why I wonder if this shift away from Patriotism is related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, since it would explain the negative attitude towards the Armed Forces.

Exactly. Supporting Trump is unpatriotic and unAmerican. What makes America America is its values, and Trump shits all over those. There’s nothing more unAmerican than that.

5

In my more cynical moments I’d say that Trump perfectly embodies some of America’s most cherished values—but I’m not normally that cynical, and for the most part I’m on board with the premise of this thread and its OP.

6

That’s wrong and shows how deeply we’ve internalized the right-wing viewpoint. Only right-wing patriotism leads to nationalism. Left-wing patriotism looks like the Enlightenment and is what pervaded the American Revolution (which the right-wing also tries to co-opt).

7

It goes back at least to Vietnam. Remember the stories (exaggerated or false) that returning servicemen were spit on by leftist hippies?

8

I have yet to see a single published news account of the brawl(s) that inevitably would have ensued if such spitting episodes had happened.

9

Right. I’m not saying it happened. I’m saying in that era the “left” was considered a whole lot patriotic than the right. America, love it or leave it.

10

Not to pick on you, because I totally get where you’re coming from and have probably said things along those lines in the past; but that sort of cynicism is, I think, pretty destructive and exactly what I am talking about in my post.

It’s true that when America was founded, it was founded with slavery, white supremacy, voting was mostly only open to a small landed gentry class, etc.

But here’s the thing. America doesn’t really exist, not objectively. You can’t go out and measure atoms of America and compare them to atoms of Germany or Iraq or Japan to see which ones are free-er or work better with people of all ethnicities etc.

It doesn’t matter* what values America was built on, because America is a social construct. What matters is what values our current society imbues our nation-state with. And repeatedly declaring that those values are “racism and white supremacy” doesn’t help fix things. If anything, it entranches those values.

*Obviously it matters historically, and that history is something we should know and understand because understanding how we got here helps us to understand where we are and how to get elsewhere. But if we as a society imbues America with different values today, then those are the values America has - regardless of the history.

11

Should the American Left reclaim patriotism? In terms of cynical realpolitik, I’d agree it is a good idea.

In terms of me personally? No. I just don’t have much tribal loyalty to folks outside of my immediate monkey-sphere. As I think I’ve mentioned before if some super-villain ordered me to make a choice between vaporizing 100 random Belgians or 99 random Americans, all strangers to me, I’d pick the Americans to be disintegrated every time. Minimization of harm before tribe, greater good for humanity before nation.

Unless it’s me and mine, in which case I’d be an utter hypocrite and vote to protect them first probably every time :slight_smile:. Because at the end of the day I’m just another monkey.

12

That’s a good point. I think the right started attacking the left as unpatriotic then (not to mention the Red Scare), but I don’t think the left really internalized it at that time? Like you said, the “spitting on soldiers” stories are probably false.

Did the left have their disdain/cynicism/skepticism about soldiers and flags back then, or is that a reaction to the post 9/11 “'Murica, Fuck Yeah” attitude?

Isn’t the Canadian left pretty big on “Nationalism”? That’s why I asked @BigT what exactly he meant by the term.

13

I’ve long argued that many liberal policies are 100% compatible with conservatism and patriotism, it’s just that they are badly marketed.

Instead of saying, “We need to support universal healthcare because of compassion and morals,” for instance, which comes across as weak and esoteric, it should be Trumpish, “America deserves the best healthcare system in the world, and it’s an outrage that we get screwed over by this horrid healthcare when other nations get better systems than us.”

Instead of “We need to support environmentalism because of tree-hugging-ism, hippies and kumbaya,” it should be “America deserves the cleanest air, cleanest water, best parks in the world.”

14

I believe the left can only 'reclaim" patriotism when the actually become patriots.

One definition of a patriot is “a person who loves their country and is ready to boldly support and defend it.” A lot of my left leaning friends don’t truly love America if using that definition. I’ll hear that the “love what America could be” or “love what American once was.” But they feel it is to, conservative, racist, homophobic etc. for them to truly love.

If in your heart of hearts you don’t feel the love, you don’t feel it.

15

Happened at least as far back as the 1960’s. Maybe sooner, I wasn’t paying attention sooner.

As @Procrustus said.

There was some of it, yes.

Very few things in politics are brand new.

And some of us do.

The response in the late 60’s/70’s to the attempts to claim patriotism for one political position was ‘My Country. Right the Wrongs.’

This country wasn’t founded under the proposition that it ought to be a Christian nation. It was founded under the proposition that “all men are created equal.” We’ve been arguing ever since about what that means – the Founders certainly didn’t mean ‘Kamala for POTUS’! – but the words are more powerful than the people who first said them, and we’ve been expanding the definition ever since.

16

Said another way, Leftists / Progressives compare the USA to the ideal of a rich, fair, and just society and find it falls short. Meanwhile Rightists / Reactionaries compare the USA to North Korea or Russia, and decide

Boy, we’re sure better than that. So we must be #1. 'Murrica: F*** Yeah!

In that mold “patriotism” is just an inverse IQ test; if you’re not very smart nor well-educated nor well-informed, you’ll be a patriot jingoist every time.

The USA is still the large country best positioned on material grounds to achieve that lofty Progressive ideal the Founding Father envisioned. If only it wasn’t held back by its society and its history. And therefore by ~60% of its populace.


Really the challenge is to let the Right have no-nothing jingoism since you’ll never pry that out of their cold dead hands.

Meanwhile the Left can reclaim the patriotism of the shining city on the hill that really does work with freedom and justice for all. In all the sorts of freedoms and justices, not only the freedom to behave stupidly and selfishly and not only justice of, by and for the wealthy, white, or connected.

17

Performative patriotism has always been the domain of the Right.

Actual patriotism has been exclusively left-wing ever since the end of the Eisenhower administration.

18

American patriotism is a strange beast. In my opinion,

Social welfare is unpatriotic because American patriotism is all about rugged individualism. We are a proud people not like to give, or take, handouts. The national identity is intertwined with stories of individuals overcoming poverty, rags to riches. This belief stems from our history as a frontier nation and it has a nasty association with social darwinism. As a nation, we believe in natural rights, not necessarily “human rights”.

In foreign policy, the national ideal of self reliance lends itself to isolationism, but we also view ourselves as enlightened, honorable, invincible, and entitled. Our government, our culture, our economy, our people, are superior and exceptional. Other nations are ultimately inferior and opinions to the contrary are unpatriotic, un-American. We have long seen ourselves as a protector nation. Our sphere of influence was grand from the start, with the Monroe doctrine encompassing the entire hemisphere. Since WWII and the Truman doctrine it has covered the entire Earth. We despise war but despise cowards even more. When we do commit to war, we expect nothing short of unconditional surrender. In capable hands, our military is invincible. Failure to prosecute war implies failure in government. While we are content with our territorial holdings, and have disavowed outright military conquest, our economic and cultural leanings are decidedly imperial. Thus we demand most favorable treatment and the tendrils of our nation are first-class citizens wherever they reach.

This brings me to the national religion. We don’t have an established religion but we do have a consensus of beliefs:

  • Monotheism, Deism
  • Natural (God-given) rights
  • Fifty states, one indivisible nation
  • Sanctity of national symbols (flags, constitution, holidays)
  • Sanctity of national institutions (courts, legislature, president, military)

American patriotism is not always aligned with the actual government. We are a rebel nation and that legacy has never left us. Treason is carefully defined by our national charter. Our freedoms were hard earned and require constant vigilance to maintain. Even our superheroes sometimes fight against the government. The nation has been weary of oppression since its inception; the United States is the union of fifty sovereign states, each still characterized as such. The nation has never been anarchist, and anarchism is anathema, but it has long been weary of tyranny and has a long history of reluctance or even resistance when it comes to strong government and especially intrusive laws and regulations.

I agree with this. If in consideration of everything wrong with America, you’ve lost faith in the flag and what it stands for… If the only thing keeping you in the U.S. rather than Canada is inconvenience… you might not be a patriot.

~Max

19

Nationalism is the step beyond hyper-patriotism. It values your own nation and devalues other nations. It tends to become racist and sexist.

And it’s really easy to do if you’re already talking about how the US is “The Greatest, Best Country in the World.” Thus, whenever there is conflict between the US and any other nation, why shouldn’t you side with the best?

It also tends to shut down dissent, because anyone who is not on board must be an enemy, and out to hurt us.

I don’t know that we do need to support people just because they kneel or burn flags.
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I would hope you would, as it’s the First Amendment. They have the right to protest, even if we disagree with their protest.

The right wing version of patriotism right now says the opposite. I saw many calls for making burning the US flag illegal, and I remember the calls to punish anyone who kneeled at the flag.

I’m not saying you hav eto support the cause, just that they are allowed to do it. Right wing patriotism doesn’t allow dissent.

Your definition of patriotism seems to be different than mine. I understand it to mean the devotion to and celebration of one’s country. I would not apply that at all the Enlightenment, which didn’t seen glorify any particular state.

I 100% agree that patriotism doesn’t always lead to nationalism. But I said “hyper-patriotism,” where you start going overboard. If it’s left wing, then the risk is leftwing nationalism, where you still have this devotion to the state and hatred for others, but your main government is further to the left.

It’s not what we want for a progressive liberal democracy. No authoritarianism. You devotion to the state should be contingent on it following certain values.

20

Now this is letting the right wing define patriotism. Part of loving one’s country is knowing about and wanting to improve its faults.

Those who think America has those problems and wants to fix them? That is a patriot. Those who uphold the ideals while acknowledging that we’re not quite living up to them? Those are patriots.

Blind love that accepts whatever is not patriotism. That’s when it slips into a hyper-patriotism—or worse.