"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Let’s get a few things straight about what it means to be “Nationalist” in the United States of America. What it means to be American and to be proud of that designation enough to have the gumption to call yourself a nationalist of this country.
It means that you believe in a country where all are free to worship, to assemble, to petition the government for the address of grievances. You live in a country where the strong protect the weak. Where all are created equal in the eyes of Gods — or not — and humanity. All. You live in a country where you are judged not by the color of your skin but by the content of your character. Where Justice is blind.
Often people who call themselves nationalist do so from an exclusionary frame. Usually, maybe. They claim their right to nationalism by defining who they are not. But, that is not American nationalism and they are not nationalists. At least not in the truest sense. Because to be exclusionary is to forget what is is to be an American and to turn away from the American Ideal.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
When you become a US Citizen either by birth or by desire or trial, you do not stand alone. You stand with people, some people, who at their best or in their heart act with intention and a yearning for good and better. The soldiers who fought at Bunker Hill and Guadalcanal. And Selma. And Stonewall. You walk in the same shoes of men who stepped onto a beach in Normandy and said “not on my watch.” And they said “no” at My Lai. They also created jazz. And rock and roll. They turned on, tuned in and dropped out in a groovy and continuing cultural revolution.
We Americans are stronger - or weaker - together. But today like never before, the forces of division seek to empower and enrich themselves by further weakening entire communities. Drunk with power they deny the undeniable.
What I see from many of my countrymen today is cowardly shortsightedness, many recognizing, in regard to foreign influence, the peril our country is in right now, the actors that have taken us to this station, but for the sake of power and money, blinded by vile partisanship and unfounded or researched contempt for the “other side” have frankly forgotten what it means to be American. What at our best we represent. The hope we have inspired in millions to join our righteous struggle.
We are not infallible. Our systems of government have their warts. The United States and Americans have done wrong and seen wrong done in the name of our country. But we place our faith in the slow grind of righteous and justice. We place our faith in the desire of a people to live and grow and be and pass on a better life for our kids than we had. That adherence to principle and rule of law and of imperfect people doing the right thing when it is hardest to do so - that is who we are.
At our very best, The United States represents a shining beacon on a hill, calling out for all humanity to join in the struggle for goodness for all peoples. We are not perfect and neither is our system. Political division has existed since the Founding of the Nation. What is new is the partnering of political faction with a foreign instigator. Americans of principle and foresight must join together and lead with people of vision and purpose. Those leaders must place aside the immature pettiness of parlor cliques that divide our country to the point that political faction has been aided and abetted by the enemy of almost everything we hold sacred in our secular system.
Have many of our countryfolk forgotten what we strive to be as Americans? I believe so.
As Democrats we now hold the moral compass of our country, our way of life, and for the world must represent a safe harbor from tyranny and piracy and division based on hate. We must stand against, but more importantly we must expose the kleptocracy that has infected this country.
To Democratic members of Congress and in State Houses: it is your patriotic duty to represent the America ideal against the faction that will destroy it for power and money.
Want to win in 2018 and beyond? Be American. Exhibit the American Ideal. Defend what America — at its very best — is. Don’t let Republicans pretend to be more American than you. Don’t ever let a Republican again use religion to assault your best intentions for they have helped elect a person who acts in defiance of piousness and humble dignity. Don’t you ever let a Republican intimate that his faction is stronger on national defense. We know differently. Or the economy. Or that they are for families. Don’t ever believe that they intend to “Make America Great Again.” We know differently.
