Let’s Reclaim Patriotism
1.22.25
There is a pernicious uneasiness that comes with having a conscience in the year of Lord 2025. We all know, on some level, the relative ethics of right and wrong. If you are reading the news and feel frightened, sick, and anxious, there is a reason: while we were sleeping, a con man robbed us of our sense of normalcy.
Perhaps America is, to him, another business to run into the ground. He repurposed a slogan used in Germany in the 1930s, inviting us to make America great again. But what makes America great isn’t something it was or is, it’s the promise of what it could be. We are a nation of unlimited potential founded on democratic principles that are intrinsic not just to a healthy society, but to the survival of the soul of this nation.
There are certain ideals we ascribe as “American.” Among them, the notions set forth by the Founding Fathers and so eloquently echoed by Abe Lincoln: we are a nation conceived in liberty and the proposition that all men are created equal. These are the concepts on which we’ve based our nation. They reflect the basic goodness of our people, the inherent belief that we all deserve to possess a sense of dignity.
Where is that dignity now? The wealth disparity is higher today than it was during the Gilded Age. The working class is exhausted and seldom, if ever, rewarded for its efforts. The poor are getting poorer, and sicker, and more desperate by the day, as public services and benefits are cut. We no longer welcome new Americans, especially if they are brown. Mr. Trump would like to deport American-born citizens, based on their parents immigration status, in direct conflict with the Constitution. And what of the right to a peaceful protest?
Russell Vought, a former Trump cabinet member, has said that if protests erupt, they should invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act, saying “We want to be able to shut down the riots and not have the legal community or the defense community come in and say, ‘That’s an inappropriate use of what you’re trying to do.”
The current Administration, only a few days old, has made its intentions clear. Their statements are no longer threats, but real abuses and injustices being carried out proudly and gleefully, like the villain in a Marvel movie. They’ve been telling us very clearly what their plans entail. At what point do we believe them? And more importantly, what do we do?
The Far-Right would have you believe that they and they alone own the rights to patriotism. This, despite their apparently violent distaste for the aforementioned Constitution, reprehensible attitude towards the military, and active malice towards marginalized peoples. They do not have a monopoly on that term, particularly when you consider the extent to which they have manipulated and perverted it to imply a fierce, forceful, unquestioning loyalty– that is nationalistic behavior, not patriotic.
We are being asked to stand in the face of unimaginable degradation, the desolation of the Constitution, the cold eyes of hatred, vicious deceit, and a President that does pledge his allegiance to you or me or America, but to the appearance of wealth and the exercising of consolidated power.
If you were wondering if it’s just you who sees the emperor has no clothes (excepting for his red armband), you who are completely stunned and dumbfounded at how Authoritarian Autocracy has made its way to the USA, you who understand how dictators rise to power, you who saw Elon Musk give not one but two Nazi salutes at the inauguration, you who noticed Trump did not put his hand on the Bible when he was sworn in, you who see and feel the suffering and agony that has consumed all of us who are not independently wealthy, you who fear for people of your race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and what will happen to a nation that turns its back on these people, if you are concerned about the drought of arts and culture that has spread as a result of the corporatization of America, if it scares you that the government wants to privatize education and sows seeds of distrust in the media whilst purporting “alternative facts”-- you’re not alone. You’re just a patriot.