Trump's stable of voters, egged on by their leader, consistently seem to view themselves as the only “real” Americans.“ Even so-called liberal voices in the media reinforce this notion by interpreting patriotism and love of country in terms that have been spelled out for decades by “conservatives:” namely, that “Americans” and “Americanism” are defined not by the adherence or abiding by the nation’s founding principles, but by virtue of their assimilation into a white, largely Anglo-Saxon mold. That it is the immigrant, or the racial or religious minority, who must conform to this “Americanism,” while that of the “homespun” white citizen is beyond question.
In a word, that’s bullshit.
As explained by Will Wilkinson of the Niskanen Center and former research fellow at the Cato Institute, writing for The New York Times, this philosophy of “Americanism,” promoted and nurtured by the American right and now enjoying a resurgence in the persona of Donald Trump and his base of support, is simply wrong. And by conflating real “patriotism” with right-wing ethnonationalism, what Trump and his ilk are exhibiting is actually nothing less than outright contempt for America as it was intended. They do this most often (and most perversely) by hiding behind the flag.
Many of us have watched as people we knew, former friends, relatives, and family members, eagerly and without reflection grasped onto Trump’s concept of national identity and “patriotism.” For his supporters, this means the ritualistic demeaning of anyone not white and Christian as somehow being "less" than American.
We have been stunned, if not totally surprised, at the easy embrace of racism and authoritarianism, the winking disregard of violence, and the willingness to ignore or abandon what we considered to be the country’s cherished institutions. And now we wonder when Trump finally departs the national stage (by whatever means) what kind of country will we be left with?
Will another, more insidious Trump figure appear who will finally lay waste to any pretense of democracy the country still possesses? And above all, how can this tide of “nationalism” which resembles nothing so much as white supremacy, be stopped?
The answer is to understand and realize, first and foremost, that this “whites-only” nationalism espoused by Trump and his supporters is based entirely on a wholesale (and deliberate) misunderstanding of the character and history of our nation as it has developed and evolved since its formation.
The way the nationalist sees it, liberals always throw the first punch by “changing things.” When members of the “Great American Middle” (to use the artfully coded phrase of Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri to refer to nonurban whites) lash out in response to the provocations of progressive social change, they see themselves as patriots defending their America from internal attack.
The attackers — the nature-denying feminists, ungrateful blacks, babbling immigrants, ostentatiously wedded gays — bear full responsibility for any damage wrought by populist backlash, because they incited it by demanding and claiming a measure of equal freedom. But they aren’t entitled to it, because the conservative denizens of the fruited plain are entitled first to a country that feels like home to them. That’s what America is. So the blame for polarizing mutual animosity must always fall on those who fought for, or failed to prevent, the developments that made America into something else — a country “real Americans” find hard to recognize or love.
To adopt this view is simply to ignore reality, and more importantly, to ignore the reality that the country has evolved multiculturally and multiracially by design and that its evolution into the country we now live in was the logical and intended outcome of that design. That in fact there is no “white America” to go “back” to—and there never was-- under the terms of the very creed that was established for the United States nearly two and a half centuries ago. The founders of the country may have been white but that is ultimately not how their vision of "equality" played out.
We actually fought a Civil War over this moral and philosophical dispute, that ended up spilling more blood than any war in our history. And any attempt at this point to “go back” to an America that never existed is in and of itself, a rejection and repudiation of everything America now stands for.
To reject pluralism and liberalizing progress is to reject the United States of America as it is, to heap contempt upon American heroes who shed blood and tears fighting for the liberty and equality of their compatriots. The nationalist’s nostalgic whitewashed fantasy vision of American national identity cannot be restored, because it never existed. What they seek to impose is fundamentally hostile to a nation forged in the defining American struggle for equal freedom, and we become who we are as we struggle against them.
In fact, a strong argument can be made that reactionary nationalism, and the people who subscribe to it, are in fact, about as Un-American as can be imagined. And that the true “Americans” are those who exemplify and extol its founding precepts of inclusion and equality—the country’s liberal citizens, as well as the nation’s immigrant population who are the living proof of its promise. Along those lines, Bard College professor Joseph O’Neill, also writing this week (for The New York Review of Books), points out an inconvenient (for conservatives), if obvious, truth:
The cornerstone assertion of the Declaration of Independence is that government exists in order to secure the equal, inalienable rights of persons. This is the formal raison d’être and official ideology of the United States. It follows that those who fully embrace those rights—liberals—have political and patriotic legitimacy, and those who reject them lack legitimacy.
(emphasis supplied)
So when we see Trump supporters wrapping themselves in the flag and loudly proclaiming that they, and only they, can be the arbiters of who gets to be “an American,” liberals and progressives, and those multiple colors, cultures, creeds and faiths that make up our own base of support, should be secure in knowing that it’s actually they, in fact, who are the real “Americans,” by any definition of the word, since the nation was formed (before that, the country’s native peoples, who we now somewhat cluelessly describe as “Native Americans,” had that sole, exclusive distinction). As Wilkinson states, it is now more important than ever for us to acknowledge that truth, to proclaim it boldly and at every turn, and to carry it with us in everything we do.
The rise of Trumpist ethnonationalism opened a new chapter, a new variation on the primal American theme, and its outcome will again define us. We must remember that it’s our story, that we write it — with our bodies, our money, our voices, our votes. And we must never lose the thread.
Yes, conservatives and Trump supporters, you heard that correctly. We are the “real” Americans.
Sorry if that bothers you.