That Phrase Can Mean Two Very Different Things
A Phrase That Caught My Eye
The Atlantic, long standing, in my view, as America’s best publication, recently did an edition focused on Black history in America. It was riveting and thought provoking on many levels, but one phrase in particular kept my brain whirling for quite a long time:
One can tell a great deal about a country by what it chooses to remember: by what graces the walls of its museums, by what monuments are venerated, and by what parts of its history are embraced. One can tell even more by what a nation chooses to forget: what memories are erased and what aspects of its past are feared. This unwillingness to understand, accept, and embrace an accurate history, shaped by scholarship, reflects an unease with ambiguity and nuance—and with truth.
This has always been true for every country. It surely is a topic worth our reflection today.
I Love America – MAGA Version
As I listen to those who self-identify as MAGA affiliates, it seems to me that when they say they love America, there are two elemental components that are nonnegotiable. One, no criticism is allowed, outside those things they dislike in the current version of our country. Any suggestions about changes or improvements beyond their own list is seen as unpatriotic and unacceptable. Two, what they really love is a rather ill-defined version of an earlier America, one in which they are trying to “bring us back to once again.”
I say ill-defined because it seems to me there is much in that earlier America that was not desirable and some elements that are inconsistent with other MAGA themes. The unacceptable part, of course, was the standing of minorities and women in our country. There was not much to celebrate about the 1950’s if you were one of these Americans.
The inconsistent part includes things like a 90% tax rate on the wealthy in that era. Hard to imagine Trump and friends thinking that was a good idea, even though America did fine with that tax rate – the rich did not suffer greatly.
I Love America – Progressive Version
This group tends, it seems to me, to love America in part for what we have accomplished and become but more so for what we aspire to be. In this perspective, there is much to celebrate and preserve, but honesty requires us to acknowledge our failures, moral and practical. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, describe an America that does not yet fully exist. At 350 years we are making progress, but we are not yet there.
There are, of course, those who feel the country is a complete failure on moral and practical grounds, but I think that is another minority, the other side of the MAGA coin. To reject all criticism or to reject all praise are both inaccurate and unhelpful.
This Is A Lot Like a Marriage Or A Romance
In many ways, our relationship to our country is like a personal relationship. If we find our partner beyond reproach in all ways, we are unlikely to help them be better people over time. On the other hand, if we see them only as imperfect people, incapable of growth, both partners are in for disappointment and conflict forever.
I have always thought of America as a work in progress, one that will never be completely finished. This is, in so many ways, a country of opportunity and possibilities. It is one that set a high bar in its earliest days for what we expect of each other.
Where Are We Heading?
But it is also a country of racial hatred, ease to corruption, a distorted version of capitalism. For me at least, I criticize not because I think less of America, but because I think more of it. I both criticize and celebrate because I think that is what reality and progress demand of us. To do any less is intellectually dishonest and morally lazy.
Unfortunately, we currently have a government at the national level, and at some local levels, that represent the worst in us and the weakest in us. This crowd seeks to eliminate honest disagreement, even discussion, of core issues. It is both arrogant and fatally flawed. Much damage will be done – much already has been done.
Democracy is a slow, messy process. It is so by design. We willingly sacrifice efficiency and the ability to get things done quickly and completely in the humble recognition that each of us may not always the right and those with whom we disagree are citizens, too. This bunch currently occupying Washington is incapable an unwilling to work within such a democratic framework.
I am confident, or at least hopeful, that at some point the other elements of government and of society will see this bunch for the damaged group they are and will toss them out. Then we will begin the process of getting back on track to living up to America’s promise.
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