The patriotism of Let America Be America Again.
Langston Hughes. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of W. Tjark Reiss, in memory of his father, Winold Reiss.

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

From Let America Be America Again, by Langston Hughes, 1938

A Patriotic Appeal (Made to Progressive Patriots)

In our general introduction to this Progressive Patriot column, we tried to make a quick yet compelling case that there are strong grounds for thinking that our progressive brand of patriotism is fully in line with the tradition of defending the ideals of the American Revolution, such that we should never cede patriotism to neo-nationalists. In this post, I’d like to take this a step further, and try to say a bit more about progressive patriotism vs. the neo-nationalist variety, and try to begin to answer the specific follow-on question, “rally whom, and for what?”

Since the ‘new fascist ruling coalition’ is still in its formative stage, and it understands that it won the day despite being in an overall numerical minority, it is almost certain that we will soon be subject to a ‘trumped up’ circus designed to undermine our ability to dissent – the Right is basically a political retrovirus; it primarily goes after the cells that make the antibodies, not the antibodies. While we go about crafting arguments (guilty as charged) the Right ignores the message, ignores the messenger, and goes after the mechanism. For years, the progressive left has struggled with the question of how to fight a foe who doesn’t play fair, without compromising our own values in the process. We need a different answer than “When they go low, we go high.” The work of this column overall is to suggest ways that we can ‘learn how to win rather than settle for just being right.’

We are going to see a nice little culture war about patriotism – free speech and freedom of conscience as it pertains to flag burning, and mandatory displays of loyalty…The purpose of this trumped-up culture war, once again, will be to weaken, discredit, and undermine organized resistance.

We have seen the presidential candidate of a major party attack private individuals, encourage violence against protesters, attack the press, threaten to jail his opponent, and question the integrity of elections. We have also seen him continue these practices as the president-elect. There is every reason to believe that this trend will continue into the new term. Along with these behaviors, there are clear signs that we are going to see a nice little culture war about patriotism – free speech and freedom of conscience as it pertains to flag burning, mandatory displays of loyalty (pledge of allegiance, national anthem), and freedom of the press. The purpose of this trumped-up culture war, once again, will be to weaken, discredit, and undermine organized resistance.

Patriotism vs. Nationalism

The patriotism vs. nationalism question has long suffered from a certain mustiness. George Orwell is often cited stating the obvious in Notes on Nationalism in 1945. Every textbook on 20th century history references the rise of nationalism (as a kind of sickness) as a root cause of two world wars. Naturally, the distinction also had a certain revival during the Viet Nam war.

But for the last twenty-five years or so, the popular cultural debate was mostly about two contrasting versions of patriotism per se. When red staters and blue staters clashed over dissent and the meaning of patriotism in the years since Reagan, it was a contest about American values. In broad strokes, it used to be the case that the blues insisted that ‘American values’ were the democratic republican values enshrined in our founding documents, and the reds insisted that America was founded on American protestant Christianity, or as I like to call it, Christianity with nationalist beer goggles.

We have a serious problem on the left with reading from old playbooks, however. In case anybody hasn’t been paying attention, the GOP officially stopped being a party of values at the Republican convention when it nominated the ‘Man without Qualities‘. Democrats watching the acceptance speech by Trump, ‘the prince of darkness,’ were elated; the speech was all about law and order, nativism, and neo-nationalism. A values-based vision was all but non-existent. Writing in response to the Democratic convention some weeks later in The New Conservative, Noah Millman remarked, “…Trump’s campaign of white nationalism has made Democrats more sure than ever that the future belongs to them, their broad coalition, and their inclusive vision. And more than a few Republicans understand it too…Frank Fratto, who served as a spokesman for George W. Bush tweeted: Watching Democrats talk about America the way Republican Candidates used to talk about America. And Rich Lowry, editor of National Review tweeted: American exceptionalism and greatness, shining city on a hill, founding documents, etc. They’re taking our stuff.”

Millman goes on to say that the success of Trump’s rhetoric is a reminder, to both the right and the left, that “the people are sovereign, and that American patriotism is defined, not by a theory of what America stands for, but by what actual Americans feel.” Since Millman was writing in late July 2016, and hindsight is always 20-20, I suppose he can be forgiven for not asking whether the feelings that American’s feel might have been handed to them by the purveyors of fake news. But that topic is for another day.

The major point I am trying to make here is that we make a big mistake if we assume that the GOP is still about values-based arguments, and winning elections based on anything other than white nationalism. As a result, the Democratic Party now owns the values game. The problem is that the other side no longer cares about defending this terrain, so we will shortly see attempts to devalue and undermine the progressive version of patriotism in favor of vulgar nationalism.

Freedom of Speech and Conscience: Flag Burning, Loyalty Tests

The first volleys have already been fired. There is discussion, coming from Trump surrogate land, about the problem of so called “rootless cosmopolitans.” There is the brewing debate over Colin Kapernick and the national anthem; there are emerging loyalty tests at EPA and State (requests for lists of names); soon the pledge of allegiance will be back too, in some way. This stuff is not accidental. They create these caricatures and then sell them to their constituents (coastal liberal elites, etc.). The new cast of characters will be developed with a special set of goals in mind – to plant the seed of an idea, namely that if you aren’t an ultra-nationalist, and you subscribe to transnational ideals, then you can’t be an American patriot.

In an interview with CNN, Scalia said, “If I were a king, I would not allow people to go around burning the American flag. However, we have a first amendment, which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged – and it is in addressed in particular to speech critical of the government.”

On November 29th, 2016, seemingly out of nowhere, Donald Trump tweeted: “Nobody should be allowed to burn the flag – if they do, there must be consequences – perhaps loss of citizenship or a year in jail!” It appears that this set of proposals emerged out of Trump’s unhappiness with the flag burning incident at Hampshire College in Massachusetts just before Veterans Day. For those of us who lived through the endless flag burning debates of the late 80s and early 90s, the dismay was palpable, since the supreme court heard flag burning cases not once, but twice (Texas v. Johnson, 1989 and US v. Eichman, 1990). Both times the court confirmed that flag burning is protected speech according to the First Amendment to the Constitution, and even “Fat Tony” Scalia did not dissent (yes, In Dark Times will sometimes resort to name calling).

In an interview with CNN, Scalia said, “If I were a king, I would not allow people to go around burning the American flag. However, we have a first amendment, which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged – and it is in addressed in particular to speech critical of the government.”

There were also several attempts to pass a constitutional flag burning amendment that narrowly failed 1995, 1998, 1999), and numerous horrifying state level proposals, such as the “beat up a flag burner laws” that were designed to encourage vigilantism by reducing assault charge penalties to $5 in the event that the victim was a flag burner.

George Bush really, really wanted the flag burning amendment to the US constitution. The problem was, he couldn’t get it through a divided congress. Any ideas why this is coming up again now? I’ll give you two guesses, one for each chamber. If anyone wants to see what is in store and why, all you have to do is re-read Texas v. Johnson, and the associated dissenting opinions.

When the Texas Criminal Appeals Court overturned Johnson’s conviction for desecrating a venerated object, it did so based upon the conclusion that the state could not criminally sanction flag desecration in order to “preserve the flag as a symbol of national unity.” The SCOTUS in turn upheld this decision, saying that expressive political nature of the conduct was overwhelmingly apparent, and also denied claims that Johnson had disturbed the peace by performing an act that others found offensive (dissatisfaction with federal government does not meet the standard of fighting words that thereby invite fisticuffs). Finally, the court also held that the state may not “foster its own view of the flag” by prohibiting expressive conduct relating to it, since the government may not permit designated symbols to be used to communicate a limited set of messages.

We are going to see all of this shit again, and soon. Except this time, along with these sorts of arguments being replayed, we will also be subject to self-confessed white supremacist, neo-fascists intent on overthrowing our way of life arguing that the flag is a sacred symbol because our brave soldiers fought and died for it in WWII at Iwo Jima and the Battle of the Bulge.” On that day, I will have to be restrained from blowing my brains out.

Let America Be America Again

At the beginning of this post, I said that this was meant to be a patriotic appeal, a rallying cry to progressive patriots. As such, I am not writing to argue with people on the other side. I am not writing to talk to the people of the middle ground, who might be swayed and brought back into the fold. I am preaching to the already converted. We can see what is coming. We need to figure out how to win. If we are going to be the party of patriotism (because we are values voters) and they are going to be the party of ultra-right nationalism, then we should draw these lines as clearly as we can, as soon as we can.

In his July 4th piece for The Forward, entitled “Reclaiming A Star Spangled Progressive Patriotism in the Age of Donald Trump,” Jay Michaelson expressed the bafflement that progressives share in reaction to the Trumpian campaign slogan. Michaelson wrote, “This is why it is impossible to make America great again. The greatness of America lies in its promise of a better future, a future closer to its own ideals.” We need to get out in front and visibly, politically, and culturally reject the nationalistic slogan “Make America Great Again” in favor of the perfect antipode, the poem by Langston Hughes, “Let America Be America Again.” Full of both ambivalence and idealism, the pain of exclusion and the hope for national revival, Hughes poem should be our rallying cry. It’s worth noting that at the close of his insipid convention speech, Scott Baio, that faux icon of a rose-colored 1950s, inadvertently echoed it, saying in his closing line, “let’s make America America again.” Apparently, Rick Santorum tried something similar in 2012.

My first, concrete proposal is this: let’s figure out how to publicly and visibly heroize our history of dissent and dissenters (including both flag wavers and flag burners), and our identity as a country of patriotic aspirants for a more perfect union, complete with protests, criticism, conscientious objection, and ambivalence. Let’s figure out how to do it, and do it fast.

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by Tedd Siegel