Reclaiming Patriotism in the Trump Era from Performative to Restorative

Keith J Sfinx

The sense of pride Americans have in our country is plummeting, tarnished by generations of racial inequalities. Young voters are the least patriotic among us, feeling powerless while feeling constantly awash in bad news. The key in reclaiming our flag from the performative patriotism of conservatives may mean loving our country enough to try to change it for the better.

My mother, Momma, is full of surprises. A decade back, the lifelong Republican and Southern Baptist endorsed same-sex marriage. In 2008, the Mississippi-born Erie transplant pronounced Barack Obama "a good family man" who earned her vote. Last week, the octogenarian took aim at Lee Greenwood's patriotic anthem "God Bless the U.S.A."

At issue was the refrain, "I'm proud to be an American/where at least I know I'm free." Momma fumed, "That song is not true. The Indians and Blacks were not free!" Momma, of course, is right, but Southern Baptists adore that song. For $59.99, one can buy a Greenwood/Trump "God Bless the USA Bible." Jesus might not approve, but Southern Baptists, no doubt, are queuing up to buy it.

Momma's apostasy, however surprising, is mainstream. Trumpism and our racial reckoning have soured many on patriotism. A generation ago, 70 percent of Americans pronounced themselves, in Greenwood's verbiage, "proud to be an American." Today, that number has cratered to a record-low 39 percent. Democrats and Zoomers lead this phenomenon. "Woke" may be a tired term, but it aptly describes the "Great Awokening," in which white, college-educated liberals came to see that race and assorted bigotries are woven into the American tapestry. Due to this, many Americans, like Momma, struggle to jibe old patriotic rhetoric with new understandings.

Marcus Atkinson surely understands why. As a boy, Atkinson's great-grandfather recounted the horror of cutting his dead brother's lynched body from a rope. In the face of such history, the Erie native and business consulting guru explained, "I am very conflicted as it concerns patriotism. My frustration with America is that it has always said one thing and done another." But he proudly points to the record of Black military service. He rightly boasts, "The highest form of patriotism is to serve when your own country won't defend your rights." Honoring this, he refuses to cede patriotism to Lee Greenwood and, "The zealots and the radicals [who] believe they have a proprietary right on the subject of patriotism."

Young voters are the least patriotic demographic. So, I asked an Erie Zoomer to explain. Tricia, who withheld her last name, was not surprised by patriotism's demise. The 22-year-old blames the social pressure to incessantly consume and post "bad" news on social media. She told me, "If you aren't posting about depressing world issues then you feel like a bad person." "The negativity," in her words, may be "exhausting," but it earns social approval — even as it sours us on the world. Derek Thompson supports Tricia's observations. The Atlantic staff writer faults social media's firehose of dismal news for plunging Americans into a "perma-gloom" of dejection. This, to him, explains why 85 percent of Americans are personally satisfied with their lives, but only 17 percent approve of the nation's direction.

And surveys reveal that it is progressives, more than conservatives, who are gripped by this phenomenon. Disillusioned that our national project falls short of the Founders' egalitarian vision, they, like my Momma, despair. An understandable reaction, the cruel irony is that American reform movements have always been founded upon patriotic calls to redeem the Founders' dream. Richard Rorty, a celebrated leftist philosopher aptly wrote, "National pride is to countries what self-respect is to individuals, a necessary condition for self-improvement." Rorty is right. Lee Greenwood's song is jingoism set to music. But progressives succeed when they find their movements in deeper patriotic sentiments.

Don't believe me? Barack Obama was an utter political unknown before his 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address. That speech, which was soaked and saturated in patriotic themes, rocketed him to political stardom. FDR, MLK, the abolitionists, and suffragettes all pointed to the Founders as the inspiration for their reforms. For all our faults, America is the world's first-ever mass democracy. Europe is free of Nazi oppression due to us. We invented jazz, basketball, the polio vaccine, and Hungry, Hungry Hippos. Liberals, it ain't hard, look to the past for what worked: wash, rinse, and repeat.

Progressive patriotism is qualitatively distinct from what Tricia calls the "performative patriotism" of those "who put the flag on everything." This, to her, makes patriotism, almost by definition, into a "conservative" impulse. Kristy Gnibus, vice-chair of the Erie County Democratic Party, thinks "progressives need to take back the flag." But she understands that Zoomers struggle to describe patriotism. When asked to define it, Gnibus' 19-year-old daughter said, "I don't know, just vote." Gnibus has a more precise meaning. She explains, "Loving your country means accepting your responsibility to change it."

John Halpin has a highfalutin term for Gnibus' impulse. He dubs it "national greatness liberalism." The senior fellow at the Center for American Progress told me, "National greatness liberalism seeks to carry out this patriotic project by upholding FDR's famous Four Freedoms for everyone: freedom of speech and worship; freedom from want and fear. In America, people are free to say and believe whatever they want and should have the economic means and personal safety to carry out their lives as they see fit."

Gnibus and Halpin's ideal is easy to achieve on paper. But we live in an age of profound cynicism. A scant 16 percent of Americans "trust" the government to "do the right thing always/most of the time." At the high tide of American liberalism, in 1965, it was 77 percent. Vietnam, Watergate, and social turmoil obliterated that trust. Ronald Reagan was no liberal hero, but during his presidency, he boosted levels of national pride. A 1983 poll showed 50 percent of Americans considered themselves "very patriotic." Alongside that patriotic boost came a 20-point rise in those who believed they "could trust the government to do what is right."

More than anything, patriotism is an expression of national self-confidence. But Americans no longer believe in one another. In 1948, when liberalism was the majority creed, the words Americans most commonly used to describe their fellow countrymen and women were "confident" and "generous." Today, the most common descriptors we apply to one another are "selfish," "spoiled," and "gullible." Grand liberal projects cannot flower in this toxic hothouse. Donald Trump has sent us all into a downward spiral of seething resentment. That's his secret sauce. He goads liberals into hating him and, by extension, one another. Here's the antidote: refuse the bait.

Jim Wertz gets it. He thinks patriotism is an "action verb." The Democratic nominee for the Pennsylvania state senate told me, "As we try to right the wrongs of the past and present, we do so under the banner of the flag. It is unifying." He and my Momma point the way to a proper patriotic balance between the poles of Eeyore and Lee Greenwood.

Momma came of age in Jim Crow Mississippi. As a kid, segregation was a fact-of-life. At home, it was unspoken that segregation and racism were wrong. But she admits that she was blinded to the cruel and vicious realities of America's original sin. Today, Momma laments that. Her revulsion to what once was a favorite song is an expression of her own Great Awokening. But she told me, "We need to be patriotic, even though there are things we don't like. If you only look at the negative qualities, you don't see the good. We should try to find the good things. The good things keep you going."

America's dynamism and boorishness are our national yin and yang. These opposing impulses are inseparable. Be like Momma; defeat the yang, Trump, by relying upon the yin, patriotism.

Jeff Bloodworth is a professor of American political history at Gannon University. You can follow him on Twitter/X @jhueybloodworth or reach him at bloodwor003@gannon.edu