Are These America’s Last Days?

How to Tell Patriotism From Anti-Patriotism

I write this in the waning days of either my America or of Trump’s. It is less than one week from the election and I don’t know what kind of country this will be. I’m hoping for the America of my birth, but I’m terrified.

You may think I’m overreacting. Perhaps you’re a Trump supporter, or perhaps you’re an optimist who believes the United States strong enough to withstand eight years of even a madman’s rule. 

I am not an optimist. I’ve long understood we have both patriotism and anti-patriotism in this country, and the anti-patriots have been winning. Both sides claim to love America, but to know the difference, you need only ask someone what makes America great.

A patriot’s answer will go something like this: America is great because it’s a place where we are guaranteed basic freedoms by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. We follow the rule of law. We have checks and balances designed to keep any one group from amassing too much power. Our founders explicitly set out to build a country where people could worship or not worship as they pleased and where, at least in theory, everyone has the same rights. 

An anti-patriot’s answer will go something like this: I’m proud to be an American, the best country on Earth. We’re a Christian nation, and our flag is sacred. American Exceptionalism exists because God is blessing us. Everyone else in the world is inferior. Oh, and if you don’t love it, leave it.

A patriot sees a flag as a symbol of our country, much as a spouse sees a wedding ring as a symbol of marriage. The ring is nice, but the marriage is the point.

An anti-patriot sees a flag as worthy of shedding blood over. It’s imbued with magical significance, and as such, it has elaborate rituals that rule how it’s handled. Anti-patriots become violently upset if they see someone disrespecting the flag but aren’t fazed by the death of an undocumented immigrant. The symbol is more important than the values of the country it symbolizes.

Anti-patriots think only Americans are free. (My European spouse is bemused by people who assume he didn’t have basic freedoms before he moved here.)

The genius who came up with the “Make America Great Again” slogan tapped right into the thick vein of anti-patriotism that has always been buried just below the surface. However, implicit in the MAGA tagline is an uncomfortable acknowledgement that we have lost some of our greatness. I blame things like income equality, while anti-patriots have other scapegoats. No country’s golden age lasts forever. My husband’s country had its turn in the 1600s and is still a wonderful place with much to admire and even covet. May the U.S. fare as well when our golden age is definitely behind us.

If any anti-patriots are still reading this, they’re angry. How dare I say such things? They cannot understand patriots’ visceral hatred of Trump. I cannot understand how anybody can stomach him. We all lived the last four years in real time and you either see it or you don’t. But more than a third of Americans love the guy, and the rest of us hate his guts.

My husband’s parents and other older relatives lived through the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Thousands of people, right now, live in miserable refugee camps all over the world because their own countries have become unsafe. I am fairly certain things aren’t going to get quite that dire here, but who knows? Ask Native Americans, Japanese-Americans and undocumented immigrant children what they think about our track record. Sinclair Lewis wrote “It Can’t Happen Here” in 1935, and if you read it, you won’t be able to stop seeing the similarities to what’s happening today. You probably know people considering a move to Canada or stocking up on beans and rice — and possibly guns and ammo. Why do we think it can’t happen here? It already is. Whether it will continue depends on what happens next week. 

I bought a few dozen miniature flags at some point when I was naively sure Trump was about to be ousted. I planned to celebrate his removal by walking through crowds and handing them out to others. I put away the flags when it became clear Trump wasn’t going anywhere. As a patriot, I understand my little flags are only symbols and not of any real importance. But if my country survives this election, I plan to smile under my mask and hand them all out in celebration.