If you listen to many longtime observers, this year’s Democratic National Convention offered up something different from previous incarnations: an emphasis on striking a patriotic stance. From Vice President Kamala Harris praising “the greatest privilege on Earth: the privilege and pride of being an American” in her acceptance speech down to the attendees waving little flags in the audience, Democrats put their love of country front and center.
But was this that much of a departure from the past? Osita Nwanevu, a contributing editor for The New Republic and columnist with The Guardian, wasn’t so sure Friday. “Which Democratic nominee didn’t ‘embrace patriotism?’” he asked in a now-deleted post on X. “Biden? Obama? Clinton?”
Nwanevu is right that there wasn’t a time when Democrats explicitly rejected patriotism. What we saw last week, though, was a shift in tone and rhetoric, as Democrats filled the gap Republicans left wide open to define what “patriotism” means. Rather than mimic the GOP to insist that they are also patriots, for the first time in decades the DNC’s attendees instead declared with their whole chests that theirs is the party of real patriots.
Rather than mimic the GOP to insist that they are also patriots, for the first time in decades the DNC’s attendees instead declared with their whole chests that theirs is the party of real patriots.
For longer than I’ve been alive, Republicans have been more than happy to accuse anyone to the left of former President Ronald Reagan of harboring anti-American sentiments. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, accelerated that trend as, in the aftermath, conservatives called forth a wave of jingoism and xenophobia that they insisted was the only way to love America. The PATRIOT Act authorized vast powers for the federal government to curtail Americans’ privacy and freedom of speech. President George W. Bush’s warning to other nations — “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists” — was turned inward toward any liberals who might speak out against invading Iraq.
Many Democrats, terrified of accusations of not respecting the troops or being soft on terror, embarrassed themselves in their attempts to prove their own love of country. It’s impossible to defend how then-Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., began his acceptance speech at the 2004 DNC without cringing. (“John Kerry, reporting for duty,” he said with a crisp salute, despite having left the military more than 30 years earlier.) In the Obama era, the tea party movement’s thinly veiled racism was initially framed as a rejection of tyranny, drawing on symbols from the American Revolution, and “patriots” became a word associated with a certain brand of conservative.
Ever focused on branding, former President Donald Trump claimed that visual vocabulary for his own, entwining his MAGA movement with the trappings of the banal, surface-level patriotism that Republicans had already embraced. But while he has embraced the American flag, sometimes literally, he has denigrated the highest ideals that that flag represents. Instead, Trump has called for the “termination” of the Constitution, and he has already attempted to overturning one presidential election. Trump has called the rioters who attempted to prevent his loss from becoming official on Jan. 6, 2021, “patriots” and just announced a fundraiser in their honor next month. Republicans, with very few exceptions, have backed his dystopian desire to substitute himself in place of devotion to the national interest.
Democrats are celebrating the country’s diversity as a sign of national greatness — as opposed to the GOP’s picture of a nation of homogeneous, unwavering loyalty.
Despite that, as The Washington Post’s Philip Bump noted, voters are still more likely to view the GOP as the more patriotic party. Polling has somewhat borne that out in the past. A YouGov poll in 2018 found that Democrats were much less likely to call themselves “very” or even “somewhat” patriotic than their Republican counterparts. It’s worth noting that this was during the height of the Trump years, a time when Democrats had their faith in America deeply shaken. It’s a faith that has yet to recover, though, according to a survey Gallup conducted in June, which found only 34% of Democrats describe themselves as “extremely proud” to be an American.
And yet the flag-waving and chants of “U-S-A” last week in Chicago would suggest otherwise. It instead speaks to an effort at redefining what love of country means along with reclaiming the concept of “freedom.” Democrats are celebrating the country’s diversity as a sign of national greatness — as opposed to the GOP’s picture of a nation of homogeneous, unwavering loyalty. This vision expands on President Joe Biden’s framing of the threat to democracy, broadening from a single man to the GOP’s fetish for that man.
In setting out this new vision of patriotism, Democrats should remember that there must be room for loving criticism. In her opening essay for “The 1619 Project,” The New York Times’ Nikole Hannah-Jones wrote about how Black Americans have always been among the most patriotic citizens. This is because despite the indignities we have suffered, we’ve been the ones most committed to seeing America embrace the better angels of its nature. The same can be said of the protesters gathered outside the arena each day and night to urge the Biden administration to halt the sale of arms to Israel as it continues its war in Gaza.
The progressivism Democrats displayed last week can make an awkward fit with the conservative-coded aspects of patriotism, as The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch rightly noted. But I would still argue that the two are more in sync than it would first appear. After all, it is an act of love of country to ask it to live up to its own ideals, to believe that it can still change for the better. The wish to see your home hold itself to the morals that it claims to represent is more patriotic than the desire to see one man ensconced as monarch in the White House.