Patriotism as Defense of America's Multiracial Democracy
Jan. 6 sought to keep Donald Trump in office and Kamala Harris out of power
Welcome back to Lucid, and a big hello to the many new subscribers who have joined our community. Our next Q&A will be on Sunday, July 7, 8-9pmET. Paying subscribers will receive a link to register for the Zoom gathering at 5pmET that afternoon.
Our guest will be historian Andre Pagliarini, who has written widely on Latin America (you can read his New York Times op-ed on Bolsonaro here). After a 1964 military coup, Brazil endured dictatorship until 1985. Prof. Pagliarini will talk about the experience of dictatorship, how its lasting traumas and dangers informed the tough response of Brazilian democracy to Bolsonaro’s Jan. 8, 2023 insurrection (modeled on Trump’s, with Steve Bannon as advisor), and how he sees our situation.
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Three years ago, I published this July 4th essay. Lucid was just a few months old and it did not get much engagement. In the intervening years, op-eds essays and books have appeared calling for patriotism and its symbols to be reclaimed from the far right. The Lincoln Project has weighed in with “We’re Taking Back the Flag.”
With our democracy under direct attack, and a corrupt Supreme Court having granted a violent criminal immunity, it’s never been so important to speak about patriotism and how America has given the world an example of multiracial democracy in action. That is what the enemies of democracy, from the Christofascists to the neo-Nazis to racist billionaires, want to destroy.
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The Declaration of Independence "sounds like a fairy tale," said Russian state television host Dmitry Kiselyov, engaging in the favorite Kremlin habit of mocking American democracy. In one way, Kiselyov's correct. Freedom, including freedom of the press, can only be fantasized about in autocracies such as Russia, which encourage collective dreams about national greatness but stifle individual autonomy and initiative.
It is this freedom to dream, and the idea that it is possible to transform one's life and the destiny of one's family, that has distinguished America in the global imagination and made it a destination for millions of impoverished, oppressed, and ambitious individuals.
The America of immigrants' aspirations was and is a place where everyone could find their community and everyone, in theory, could have a chance, with dizzying improvements in standards of living possible within the scope of one or two generations, both for immigrants and for people born here of every race and religion.
It is time to harness this sense of pride and potential, this ability to dream, and make them central to a new brand of patriotism that celebrates America’s multiracial character as a generative force.
When democracy is stable, talking about patriotism may appear unseemly. Patriotism is associated with flag-waving, saluting soldiers and defending "the American way of life,” which is often code for defending the interests of White Christianity.
Yet when democracy is under attack, as it is today in America, talking about patriotism is essential. To make it appealing, we must find a new language, one that can mobilize new generations of voters and constituencies who may not be inclined to display the flag.
Creating passion and excitement around America explicitly as a multiracial democracy is one way in. It directly confronts the GOP's attempts to disenfranchise non-Whites, impose silence about past and present racial crimes, and engineer and enforce rule by a White minority.
Celebrating America as a multiracial democracy is also forward-looking and pragmatic. The latest census document confirms that the non-Hispanic White population is shrinking. People classified by the Census Bureau as belonging to "Two or More Races" are the fast-growing group, followed by Asians and Hispanics.
Faced with these changes in the American population, the GOP has chosen to retrench rather than reform. When shifting demographics are seen as an existential threat, being racist is twisted into a patriotic act. Nothing is off the table to save the country and reverse the course of history.
In this light, the Jan. 6 coup attempt was not just an operation to keep the “right” person in office (Donald Trump), but an attempt to keep the “wrong” people, such as Vice President Kamala Harris, out.
To counter this authoritarian agenda, we must explicitly associate patriotism with defense of democracy, and highlight the stability and productivity of America as a multiracial society. The aspiration of freedom for everyone is no fairy tale. It reflects our best traditions and civil rights history. A patriotism built on that heritage can be powerful indeed.
Where are the alarm bells? We are in an apocalyptic danger. The mass majority of Americans are taking care of their families, worrying about the daily struggles of their personal lives, and making sure their children are getting what they need. As the average German citizen did when their country was very slowly and unrecognizably at first, and then unstoppably bursting into fascism, Americans are operating in what they think is a normal world. It is not normal. If we do not wake up, the youth of today, as well as all of us, will be trapped in an unrecognizable nightmare of living in a fascist country—a country in which we will lose our most of our freedom to chose how we live, what we can say, what we can learn, who we can love, what our children can learn, where we can travel, and so on. And our fascist leader will be a corrupt, mentally ill, unprincipled, narcissistic, immoral, and uncaring man.
The mass majority of citizens have no idea what terrors lie ahead for themselves, their children, their families, and their friends.
How do we wake them up before it’s too late?
Gayle Donsky
Producer of the recent award-winning documentary, “The Broken Promise.” The film is about genocide and warning signs that countries are moving toward authoritarian rule and genocidal policies.
We must reclaim the narrative. We must reclaim the heritage of not wanting a king.