robertreich:

On this coming Fourth of July, it’s
worth pondering the true meaning of American patriotism – as opposed to the
malignant, distorted view of it propounded by Donald J. Trump.

For Trump, the central challenge of
American patriotism is to secure our borders. “Without borders, there can be no
nation,” he says.

But excluding foreigners has never
been a dominant part of American patriotism. For most
of its existence America has been relatively open to people from the rest of
the world, especially those fleeing tyranny and violence.

America’s core struggle has been
one of inclusion, not exclusion. We have strived to extend equal citizenship to
Native Americans, African Americans, women, and
LGBTQs. 

The poems of Walt Whitman and
Langston Hughes, and the songs of Woody Guthrie, expressed loving devotion to
America while turning that love into a demand for justice. 

“This land is your
land, this land is my land” sang Guthrie. “Let America be America again,”
pleaded Hughes:  “The land that never has been yet–/And yet must be – the
land where everyone is free./The land that’s mine – the poor man’s, Indian’s
Negro’s, ME –.”

Trump’s patriotism centers on
symbolic displays of loyalty like standing for the national anthem and waving
the American flag.

But such displays haven’t been at
the center of American patriotism, either. Historically, American patriotism
has meant taking a fair share of the burdens of keeping the nation going.

This includes volunteering time and
energy to improving the community and country. It has meant paying taxes in
full rather than lobbying for lower taxes, seeking tax loopholes, or
squirreling away money abroad.

It also means refraining from
making political contributions that corrupt our politics, and blowing the
whistle on abuses of power even at the risk of losing one’s job.

Real patriotism involves
strengthening our democracy – defending the right to vote and ensuring more
Americans are heard, not claiming without evidence that millions of voted
fraudulently and pushing for laws that make it harder for blacks and Latinos to
vote.

True patriots don’t inundate
government with industry lobbyists, attack the freedom of the press, criticize
judges who disagree with them, or fill the airwaves with lies. They don’t
direct employers to fire employees who exercise their freedom of speech.

True patriots don’t court foreign
dictators, and don’t excuse tyranny by denigrating America.

When asked whether Vladimir Putin is a killer, Trump responded “you think our
country’s so innocent?” When asked about Turkish strongman Erdogan’s disdain
for civil liberties, Trump said “when the world looks at how bad the United
States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I don’t think we’re a
very good messenger.”

True patriots don’t fuel racist,
religious or ethnic divisions. They aren’t homophobic or sexist. To the
contrary, true patriots seek to confirm and strengthen and celebrate the “we”
in “we the people of the United States.”

Trump is the first United States
president to use the term “we” to refer only to his supporters. “My supporters are the smartest, strongest, most hard working
and most loyal that we have seen in our countries history,” he tweeted
recently. “As we get stronger, so does our country.”

A majority
of today’s Americans do worry that the nation is losing its national identity.
But that identity has never been centered on our support for a particular
president or his policies.

Nor, more fundamentally, has our identity
depended on the whiteness of our skin or the uniformity of our ethnicity.

Our national identity has been our
shared ideals.

If we are losing our national
identity it is because we are losing those ideals: a
commitment to the rule of law, to our democratic
institutions, to truth, to tolerance of our differences, to equal political
rights and equal opportunity, to participating in our civic life and making
necessary sacrifices for these ideals we hold in common.

We must share these ideals if we are
to have a functioning society. Without them, there is no America.

Trump is doing everything he can to
destroy these ideals. We must do everything we can to strengthen them.

This is the true test of our
patriotism.