Surveying the Anti-patriotic Party, on July 4th

An Anti-American American Political Party is Destined for Disappointment

The Democratic Party must return to a position of love and appreciation for the freedoms and opportunity of America - because it is in its long-term strategic interest, and because it is proper to be grateful for these things.

One party chants ‘USA!’ in victory and enthusiasm. One does not. One party festoons the homes of its members and its political events with American flags. One does not. What are we to make of this?

I attended a Trump rally in Hialeah in 2023 - the tone and messaging were very distinct from the Harris rallies that I observed

The ideological landscape these days can seem a confusing and contentious place. I’ve spent a lot of time considering the ideas which bind the modern right and the modern left. The deepest distinction that I can find is that the right seems to truly love America, with all of its faults and weaknesses, and the left only loves America inasmuch as it conforms to its ideological vision (which is, almost by definition, progressive and utopian). One coalition loves America for its freedoms and one looks askance at those freedoms (the freedom to buy land, build businesses, educate children as one thinks best) as generators of reactionary sentiment and inequality. There is no escaping this divide. One loves America for its past and its constitutional guarantees and those are sufficient for them to love it. One only loves America for its possible future, and if that future doesn’t resemble the progressive vision (painted by people who are overwhelmingly without any direct experience of war or poverty) then they will not love it. They do not love it.

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“I’ve seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal and cruel and dark. Rome is the light.”

-Maximus, Gladiator (film, 2000)

The Joys of a Working Society

Politics is essentially an emotional enterprise. You delude yourself if you think that you believe what you do because of reason or facts or logic. The only emotional prerequisite for American patriotism is gratitude, and gratitude always requires some knowledge and appreciation of misfortune. Immigrants to this country are, in my experience, among the most patriotic Americans and I think that’s because they understand the alternatives to our system. American policing cannot be understood as violent and corrupt if you have knowledge and experience of Brazilian police. The American job market cannot appear unequal and exploitative if you’ve worked in Angola or Zimbabwe. American poverty won’t seem grave to anyone who’s spent time in Afghanistan. By Afghanistan’s standards there is no poverty in the United States, and by Brazil’s standards there’s very little corruption.

Progressives want to make change, and so their tendency is to emphasize the dysfunctionality and injustice of the status quo, but this effort simply falls apart when the American status quo is compared with that of almost anywhere else. There’s more wealth and freedom and opportunity in our country than in any other, and the disparity looks even more stark when you consider the material circumstances of humanity throughout history.

This stance, that America is a wonderful place, is not a function of my political beliefs. It’s deeper than that, and to prove it I will make a claim: virtually everyone who has lived in the third world or spent a significant amount of time there will acknowledge the blessings of American life. The ONLY PEOPLE who will question and criticize and malign American life as it’s lived today (without any knowledge of history or of conditions around the world) are almost exclusively those who have only experienced life in America (or some other developed country). There are no immigrants from Bangladesh or defectors from North Korea or students from Nigeria or workers from Mexico who will launch the strident and unbridled criticisms that you often hear from the left.

Gratitude on the Eve of America’s Birthday

If we acknowledge that we are a blessed country then we should ask ourselves why this is. To me the answer is obvious: it’s our system of government. Our political and economic system allows people from all over the world to come here and build lives for themselves, relatively unencumbered by bureaucracy or oppression or discrimination. Recognizing that, we should commit ourselves to limiting bureaucracy and oppression and discrimination. Instead, we have many people who now support and promote bureaucracy and oppression and discrimination, provided these things accord with their agenda or bolster their power or their class privileges.

No. There is not.

(from The New York Times)

…you get the idea

The American Constitution exists to limit the power of the central government. That’s it. That’s all it does, and all it was ever meant to do. Observing that, we can understand why many progressives now have soured on the idea of Constitutional governance (as they’ve soured on the idea of electoral prerogatives) - these things are only worthy and helpful inasmuch as they augment their power and promote their agenda. But they’re not, and this is an important point: liberty (and its correlate, limited government) is innately good. It is inherently good because it allows a fuller exploration of the capacities and idiosyncrasies and dreams of the individual, nested within his community, and because it is inherently good it tends to lead to better outcomes. The United States would still be a glorious country, even without Obamacare or federally-funded public education or legal abortion or a Civil Rights act. It might not be as glorious, but when you compare the country to the misery and brutality of the rest of the world and of the condition of humans throughout history you realize that we are incredibly lucky to live here now. This is not a convenient fact for progressive reformers (who must try to make things seem rather bad right now, in order to justify radical solutions) but it’s about as objectively true as any social reality can be.

A Country Divided

It’s become trite to observe that America is polarized. I think the actual degree of polarization is exaggerated and over-emphasized by the unnatural and divisive dynamics of social media, but there are certainly two main political camps in this country, and they’re farther apart than ever, it seems.

While people like to act as if this is a recent phenomenon, the political division goes back to the early days of the Vietnam war (more than 60 years ago), when working class boys were drafted in fight in Southeast Asia and more privileged ones busied themselves with making signs and exploring the frontiers of musical and sexual and psychedelic dalliance. The two groups which are divided align very closely with social class: on one side there are working class people who have a kind of instinctual reverence and affection for the idea of America. On the other are knowledge workers and professionals and administrators who now often hold their political project and progressive values in higher esteem than they do their country and its history. This division is widening, exacerbated by politically biased curricula and media manipulation and tribalism.

I recently saw a post that said, referring to new ICE detention facilities being erected in Florida, that we need a new Nuremberg Trial to address what’s happening now.

There is a great deal of rhetoric out there like that: rolling back DEI is a win for white supremacy (rather than a fairly pedestrian change to policies which mostly benefitted privileged professionals and administrators -white women especially - and which had no appreciable benefit for poor black and brown people). ICE agents are jack booted thugs (rather than federal law enforcement agents, carrying out popular and electorally-approved government operations). Giving DOGE access to treasury data was an outrageous privacy violation (rather than an innovative means of identifying wasteful and frivolous spending - which is undeniably rampant).

The picture formed around each of these issues is, in many respects, almost the opposite of the truth, and all perspective is abandoned in pursuit of hyperbole and outrage. The people who feel strongly about these debates (on both sides) feel certain that they understand the full implications of these policies, despite knowing almost none of the details and making one false supposition and incorrect prediction after another.

Policy proposals are not moral crusades or ethically obvious commandments, and they’re only sometimes depicted in these ways because that arouses indignation and makes opponents look bad (misguided, or evil). But policies are complicated. No one knows what the effects of tariffs or immigration enforcement or bail reform will be… but we can identify a curious pattern: the predictions made by progressives, concerning the policies they advocate and the policies they oppose, are almost always proved wrong.

I remember discussing the presidential election in November and being told that Trump would purge the military of potential opponents, that he would restrict abortion access in some terrible (but always vague) manner, that ICE operations would target citizens and that tariffs would cause dramatic price rises and eventually a recession. Some of these predictions might come to pass (at least the tariffs one might) but none of them have yet. The real and undeniable truth is that we have a media and academic class that is busily and quite obviously making things up. Their defense of the progressive agenda has become so florid and hysterical in certain cases that one doesn’t even need to attend to the details of policy debates or contemporary conditions to know what the reflexive PMC response will be: anything supported by their opponents will be a disaster and will hurt legions of brown and black and old and poor people. The truth, of course, is that all federal government policies have victims and beneficiaries (and rarely the ones that are intended) and that Biden administration policies also led to the impoverishment of millions and the deaths of thousands of citizens. As would have the policies of a Harris administration. That real and potential harm is a major part of the reason that Trump was elected, and while America has a uniquely short memory it is not so short that the voting public will forget the cost and risks attached to the wave of millions of illegal immigrants so quickly. We are not so distractable and easily manipulated that we will rise in righteous anger at the detention or deportation of those same illegal immigrants. That (mass deportation) is, very definitely, what we all voted for - no because we dislike immigrants but because we perceived a dramatic imbalance in our border policy which was having terrible fiscal and social effects across America. Those ICE detentions and deportations? That’s the American government working exactly as intended.

The truth is that the American people (including most Democrats and most Republicans) tend to be pragmatic, empathetic, decent people. If you can’t understand how pragmatic and decent people might support the deportation of millions of human beings that might indicate more about your ignorance of their perspective and the policy implications involved than it does about their dark motivations. That is the thing that the left still hasn’t realized, which I wrote about earlier this year: the theories and the abstract ideas about what should happen are no longer convincing to most people. The experts and analysts have simply been wrong too often and too badly, and they have betrayed their duty to rigor and objectivity in order to score political points. The left will have to make their case to Americans based not upon saccharine human interest stories and astroturfed sympathy for federal workers and outrageous exaggerations regarding the effects of spending bills or DEI rollbacks. The left will have to make their case to Americans based upon the likelihood of their policies to protect the safety and economic prosperity and opportunity of the public. Unfortunately that puts the left in a very bad position… for they hollowed their organizational structures out during the past decade in pursuit of exhilarating notions: abolish gender stereotypes; protect and subsidize illegal arrivals; educate public schoolchildren so that they come to embrace progressive values; eliminate sex-based hiring disparities in unemployment; transform our energy grid to a renewables-only generating system; eliminate cash bail and lessen criminal penalties; defund the police. As these proposals fell, one by one, and revealed themselves to be variously hollow and unworkable, the media machine went into overdrive, furiously trying to focus attention on Trump (rather than the effects of Democratic party corruption, or the exorbitant and criminal waste of federal spending). It has partly succeeded… but the Democrats are now a party without a platform. Other than opposing Trump (by halfheartedly creating narratives about ICE stormtroopers, or by trying to generate sympathy around ‘cuts’ to Medicaid spending and the like) the Democratic Party has no unifying ideas. It veered away from its old constituencies and its former respect for the Constitutional system of the United States, enamored of progressive ideals and an agenda that seemed so much more urgent and important to the believers than things like judicial independence or party primaries. They were, very plainly, led astray by a young cohort of silly professionals without a great deal of knowledge about the world (which the working class, for all its faults and its relatively mediocre average IQ scores, certainly possesses). That young and educated cohort seemed so energetic, so passionate… but their energy was mostly restricted to online expression. They didn’t understand that policy is a cost-benefit analysis, that every regulation and piece of legislation harms someone, and that power should be wielded for the benefit of the people, rather than for the benefit of the professionals who so badly want to manage the people’s lives and affairs.

The Anti-patriotic Party

Now we come to a situation in which is probably new to American politics, or at least unprecedented since the Civil War era. A majority of respondents connected to one political party now report being less than proud of their American identity. This might seem bad for the country, and it is, but it’s worse for these people and for their political prospects. It indicates a profound ingratitude and nihilism, and a kind of psychological immaturity.

I can’t advise the Democrats as to where to go from here. I find it difficult to communicate with doctrinaire progressives, who have been taught an entirely separate lexicon, in which “anti-racism” means “racism on behalf of black people” and in which “inclusion” means “excluding everyone who disagrees with us” and in which “dismantling institutions” apparently means “taking over institutions and using them to protect our class privileges and ensure our financial enrichment.”

More than the difficulty of communicating with progressives or the emotionally-laden confirmation bias which makes rational and sober discussions of history and policy so fraught, though, is the class blindness. Progressives are now people who are profoundly isolated from the realities that they seek to improve. Progressives, in my experience, have almost no direct experience of physical labor or poverty or imprisonment or war or racism or sexism. Almost none. It is possible that the political divide which we see in this country is actually a kind of existential chasm, a vast schism in perspective and values. This chasm may have been widened by the success that America has had in creating wealth and protecting its citizens from not just war and disaster and crime, but also from from offense and inconvenience. We might be seeing the first generation in human history who have been raised in such fabulous luxury and privilege that they no longer understand basic truths about bigotry and evil and achievement and competition.

As I already wrote, “immigrants to this country are… among the most patriotic Americans.” Immigrants are also the demographic that have moved most dramatically in support of Donald Trump, from 2016 until today. Native Americans voted for Trump last year at rates above 65%. The idea that progressives represent deeper American ideals, of economic justice and egalitarianism and radical social change, should be examined closely. It is possible that these ideas aren’t truly American after all. And if they’re not they should be discarded.

Final Thoughts

We don’t need the federal government to solve social problems. We don’t need the federal government to aid the poor or to build hospitals or to teach us about multiculturalism or to get little girls into STEM. Commercial and charitable and community-based and state government programs can do all of those things. Many American states have bigger economies than most countries.

Perhaps the Democrats should (and I know this is radical for them) begin to separate themselves from their long-standing attraction to coercive and expensive central government programs. The record indicates that they often haven’t worked (at least as advertised) but, more to the point: they’re unnecessary. The freedom of America lies in the strength and dynamism and ambitions of its people. That freedom is not just disconnected from federal taxation and regulation and control - it’s antithetical to it. If you want to instruct children as to the beauty and validity of genderqueer lifestyles, found schools and do that. If you want to assist the old and the poor, then raise money (you progressives certainly have enough of it, amongst you) to found care homes and mutual aid societies. If you want to imprint DEI onto the corporate world, then lobby and pressure corporations to adopt these ideals. Better yet: start your own corporations! Female-only engineering firms or black-owned financial consultancies or trans-centric lawyering guilds. I will support your right to do all of these things. Unlike you, I’m motivated less by a burning attachment to some idealized policy agenda than I am to the freedoms themselves. I love the freedom American offers people to build their own lives and realize their dreams, as varied and interesting s the people themselves. This is a wonderful country with vast resources to do good and make change, and the horizon of possibility stretches in every direction.

Just please don’t take my money or restrict my freedom to do it. Deal?

Thanks for reading. Take care of yourself.

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