I don't know how long the fight over critical race theory will last. Conservatives are already showing signs of getting bored by it. But one thing is certain: it's a skirmish, not a war, and its origins go back, like so many culture war artifacts, to the decades shortly after the end of World War II.
It's no secret that ever since McCarthyism and Vietnam, modern liberals have had a fraught relationship with traditional ideas of patriotism. We are uneasy with open displays of flag waving and nationalism. We find unapologetic expressions of patriotism to be dangerously tantamount to jingoism. We are reluctant to say that the United States is the greatest country in the world.
All of this is understandable. If your country goes on communist witch hunts; if your country turns water cannons and attack dogs on civil rights protesters; if your country kills millions in a war in Vietnam—if your country does all this and more, how can you say in good faith that it's the greatest country in the world?
But this doesn't go down well with the half of the country that's unashamedly patriotic and distrusts anyone who isn't. Liberals have never had a good answer to this, typically mumbling something about true love of country being expressed by those who understand our shortcomings and are working to fix them. This has never been persuasive to anyone who doesn't believe it already.
And it's what the fight over CRT is really about. Nobody actually cares about the technical definition of CRT, and it's pointless to mock people who use the phrase without knowing anything about its origins and whether it's really taught in our public schools. Nor is it really about racism for most people. It's about patriotism.
The underlying question, as always, is this: How can you teach children the truth about slavery, native genocide, red scares, and other ugly episodes from our past, and yet also teach them that the United States is the greatest country on earth? Because this is what the CRT warriors really care about. They care about our children learning to love their country.
This, for example, is at the heart of the fight over Nikole Hannah-Jones' 1619 Project. It's not about minor errors of fact or even the factual content writ large. It's about what the authors think about America, a word I use advisedly. Do they think America is a great idea enacted by great people who made some mistakes along the way? Or do they think that America is at root a racist country created and built by racist white men who also did a few good things along the way?
The former highlights both the ideals of our origin and the events in our history that make America admirable—democracy, personal liberty, economic dynamism and entrepreneurial spirit, religious tolerance, victory over fascism and communism—and thus allows you to acknowledge even the most sordid chapters in our history while still believing that America is the greatest country on earth. The latter simply doesn't. It makes America no better or worse than any other country that prospered due to the blood on its hands.
And there it is. This is what the fight has been about for decades. How do we present American history to our children in a way that acknowledges the worst of our past while still teaching them that America is the greatest country in the world and well worth our unconditional love? And do we even want to?
If you focus on that, real compromises might start to appear. Or not. Maybe it's an impossible circle to square. But if you focus on anything else, you're certain to never do anything except evade what the real dispute is about.
"How do we present American history to our children in a way that acknowledges the worst of our past while still teaching them that America is the greatest country in the world and well worth our unconditional love?"
Yeah, I don't think this is totally doable. I think the best a thinking, critical American can say is that to the extent my country lives up to it's wonderful ideals, it is definitely worth loving, and one of the great countries in the world. But THE GREATEST? I don't think I can make that claim. I don't think a critical, thinking American believes in American Exceptionalism, in other words. I love my wife, and she is the most important woman to me, and I pledge my loyalty to her. But I wouldn't proclaim her the best woman in the world. It's a silly idea. Surely I can love my country without having to be mean and stupid about it.
Well said. Any family that spent its time telling itself and its neighbors about its exceptional virtues, making it the greatest family in the neighborhood, would be ridiculed as a bunch of egotistical clowns. Or in America, perhaps not. Certainly public figures seem incapable of saying anything about anywhere without mentioning how great it is, from the 'great state of Wyoming' to the 'great town of Buttcrack, Virginia'.
If your country goes on communist witch hunts; if your country turns water cannons and attack dogs on civil rights protesters; if your country kills millions in a war in Vietnam—if your country does all this and more, how can you say in good faith that it's the greatest country in the world?
Well now... I won't say that. I don't believe that. The USA IS like every other country. We have interests. And the USA is ruthless in pursuing its interests. It that means we slaughter native people, so be it. If that means we bring millions of slaves here, so be it. If that means we wage endless losing wars today, so be it. That's in the interest of someone selling war.
Mr. Drum is correct. That is the core of the debate. I know where I come down. America is evil. That's why its children routinely kill their classmates in schools. Humanity itself is a freak show and Americans fit right in. Good luck.
I'm convinced that in politics, anti-patriotism loses votes. Even patriotism proudly expressed without consciousness of historical injustices is a potent force, and political parties had better not disrespect it.
By the way, our former president treated the flag of the United States as a sex doll. That was offensive to old-fashioned patriotism.
Hyper-patriotism or chauvinism/jingoism needs to be differentiated from true patriotism. Hyper-patriotism is indeed a potent force - one that usually brings about national downfall.
Serving our country in uniform as membership in TEH TROOPZ is the ultimate expression of patriotism. Unless your name is Max Cleland or John Kerry.
I really wish Saxby Chambliss's stroke had finished him before Cleland died. Then Max could have repaid 2002 & pissed on Saxby Deferment's fetid corpse.
Military are despicable criminals. Might as well be gangbangers serving the super rich drug kingpins.
This is not a popular view, but it is sincerely held by me.
Yeah, we should just get rid of the US military. And the police. And border control agents.
Great thinking to promote: TRUMP 2024!
What’s the last thing the US military did? Lose in Afghanistan and kill a bunch of children for revenge. I’m so proud.
US Army Corps of Engineers saved New Orleans?
Without the US military, authoritarian regimes around the world would have ended democracies by now. A key goal for the US military is to simply be ready to fight if and when needed. Elected politicians decide when they will be used, not the military.
This may be the way it's supposed to work, but in the real world the military makes the decisions and then sells them to civilian leadership, either by lying or scaring the pants off everybody in the country.
No, the military doesn't "make the decisions". If they promote some point of view, it is up to civilians leaders, and their advisers, to ask the right questions to make sure they are not misled. You can't blame the military for any of our wars. The buck stops with the civilian leaders.
It should not be controversial to say that if the Founders had thought they were creating a perfect nation, the Constitution would not have an Article V.
Article II, like Amendment II, is all that matters to El Jefe & his desired autocracy.
There was a time when Americans were not so in-your-face about things
So you could go through school praising the United States as the greatest but still harbor racist thoughts. Misogynist thoughts, Anti-Communist thoughts.
The rub is that communism united us all in a hatred of something OTHER than a portion of ourselves.
How can you love America but hate black Americans?
Hate American women?
Hate immigrants that go on to become citizens?
In this day and age our hatred become public instantaneously, through? Yep, the internet, Jabberwocky, Facebook and instagram and others. In decades long ago you'd have to write a letter, get a stamp, mail it and pray it got to it's destination.
Now we just say "I hate ______(fill in your own bias) and voila. Now not only does your intended target get the picture, the entire WOLRD gets the picture and theres probably several folks out there saying "Hey, that guy thinks just like me, I should contact him"
We made communication way too easy
Maybe it's just a sign that we're an immature nation. I mean, look at Germany: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMQkV5cTuoY
If they can be proud of not being proud, can't we at least *try*?
If you compare the last hundred years of our histories, it's hard to say Germany comes out ahead as the more mature nation. Even if you say that today Germany is more mature, what a path they took to get there. I would hope we can become more mature without that kind of experience.
FWIW, Germany has an older culture but is a younger country than America.
>I would hope we can become more mature without that kind of experience.
I would rather America hadn’t brutally enslaved Africans and slaughtered and ‘ethnically cleansed’ Native Americans. But it did. I see no point in saying ‘at least we weren’t the Nazis’. And I’m German-American - the histories of both of my cultures weigh on me. While we cannot change the past, we can strive for a better future. Will we not welcome every nation that joins this striving?
You know, I grew up in a place most of you have never heard of, Birch Bay, WA. There were people there who, as best I could tell, had never live anywhere else, and yet they would say that this was the best place on Earth. I thought it was pretty nice, all right. (I still do). But how could they even know it was the best if they had never lived anywhere else?
But I understand that statement differently now. It's subjective. "the best" means "my favorite". In that sense, yes, America is "the best". It's my favorite. I could move to Canada, or Belize, or Costa Rica or something. Hell, I could probably move to Malta. But why would I? I love it here. I love the seedy motels in the middle of nowhere, and the crazy people on the street in the big city.
I mean, you can love things that are flawed, right?
We can talk about what we love. I think it's appropriate. I think it's a strong message.
While I'm thinking of patriotism - I think a core aspect of my patriotism is that when we have an election that is legally conducted, I live with the result, even though it doesn't suit me. I do that because I love the country, and rule by law, and by election, is at the core of what we do.
Anyone who doesn't want to live with the result of a legally conducted election is an enemy of America. We also need to bring this message, but link it to what we love.
Birch Bay - I remember it for all the "Canadian dollars accepted at par" notices- then jacking the prices up 10% for the foreign tourists. True patriotism!
Yes, well said. I think what Kevin has noticed is not unlike the difference others have noted elsewhere, the gap between the cosmopolitans and the people whose identity is inextricably linked to their locale. Other political/cultural divides outside the US have a similar dynamic. Brexit comes to kind. We coastal elites need to recognize there is a real downside to the cosmopolitan life. I remember talking to a real estate agent
years ago in the town I live in north of Boston ( I am not a native, she was) and she had decidedly mixed feelings, despite the money it made her, about all the corporate transients who bought here and then moved on 5 years later . Yes, they were smart and professional and helped property values but they had no long term connection to the town so were less likely to care about all the local issues that are the lifeblood of a town. I think homeys - cousins of the uncritical patriots Kevin describes here - are distrustful of the transients, the ones who can't say unreservedly "this is my hometown".
"Breathes there a man with soul so dead who never to himself hath said this is my own my native land". This resonates with a lot of folks. .
I had to reply when I saw that you had grown up in Birch Bay. I was born in 1948 in Vancouver, BC, and for the first 12 years of my life my family would go to Birch Bay for 2 weeks in the summer...I remember these as some of the happiest days of my childhood! We would go to Halversons with a nickel and come out with a bag of candy, or the same at the Triangle store. We would get to go horse-back riding once a year, and would get to go to the little fair with the rides. I don't know when you lived there but it is still my happy place my mind goes to when anxiety strikes...as it does all too frequently these days.....
It's fine to teach kids that America is the greatest country on earth and we stand for all the right ideals. But at the same time, whenever someone strays from those high ideals, they need to be shot down quick.
The way it's supposed to go is:
Americans are better. We don't stoop to their level. We don't torture. Slavery was a huge mistake, we work constantly to not be biased bigots, because we are better. We treat our women with respect. And we constantly help each other out.
True patriots would never have elected Trump because he can't live up to our ideals. True patriots would insist on making it easier to vote because free and fair elections is the American Way.
One can always find a percentage of people in all countries that are defining themselves as the true patriots , the only genuine citizens (and one can apparently find an unusually high percentage of them in USA)
That group are always the ones who hate their country the most simply because their beloved nation doesn’t work in the way they expect it to work and they are always the ones who hate their fellow citizens the most simply because they are not acting in the way they should
A good night from your Swedish friend
I remember the Alberta crowd of people who would proudly call themselves True Patriots booing "O Canada", the national anthem, because parts of it were sung in French
Still surprised Jarome Iginla lasted as long as a Flame as he did.
I think you've hit on something important, Kevin. But while that circle may not be squarable when viewed as a circle I think there's another way to do so which some of the other commenters have touched on.
The older I get the more fascinated I am in how people subconsciously insist that something be either A or Not A. In other words, we all tend to default to a binary view of the world and analyze things with traditional/binary logic.
Yet that's clearly not the way the world works. In fact, Bertrand Russell proved that the rules of traditional logic are themselves internally inconsistent. So at best they can only be of limited application.
Now in the vast majority of situations those rules are both powerful and adequate. But not in all (quantum mechanics comes to mind...but I don't want to go there because I don't pretend to understand quantum mechanics). In particular, it seems like the more complex a system is, and the more feedback loops it has, the less likely binary logic will be sufficiently applicable to analyze the system.
Market capitalism is a great example of this, I think. But so is politics, on both a personal and a community level.
It is perfectly reasonable for someone to hold internally inconsistent political beliefs. Most of us do. And it doesn't bother us until we are forced to "make a choice". That's where we are strongly tempted to apply binary logic outside of where it works well. It's kind of like the collapse of the wave function :).
A better approach, I think, is to recognize that any political decision or statement one makes is only a particular snapshot of a complex -- and not internally consistent -- belief system. And learn not to treat such statements and decisions as anything more than that. That's the hard part.
I have no problem asserting I think the USA is one of the best nation-states to exist...while simultaneously acknowledging we have committed terribly evil acts for which we will be, if we wish to live up to our ideals, atoning for forever. Are those two viewpoints inconsistent? Of course. But they better represent my personal view of the USA than either does alone.
There's a line from a novel I often think about in these discussions. Its an exchange between a young hero who saved the world and his older mentor who has to explain to him that the man who opposed him is not only not going to be punished but will also be honored for what he did.
"No, son, we're mortal -- which is to say, we're ignorant, stupid and sinful -- but these things are only handicaps. Our pride is that nevertheless, now and then, we do our best. A few times we succeed. What more dare we ask for?"
That's why I view the USA as one of the best nation-states the world has seen. We screw up a lot, we commit our share, more than our share of evil (because we're pretty damn effective at doing stuff, good or bad). But sometimes we do our best and succeed.
Provided we never stop trying to live up to our ideals I can live with that.
Thanx for an interesting post.
Uh, no.
Just ... no.
I assume the first image with this post was meant to be thought-provoking.
In any event, given the frequent propensity to grade on a curve, something can still be "the greatest" and not actually be "perfect" ...
I am not American but I love the America in the visions of Lincoln, FDR & King. Churchill said "America does the right thing, but only after trying everything else" Unfortunately "everything else" has a lot of bad stuff. It is not light or dark, but lots of nuance.
As long as Fox News, or politicians, can gain popularity from highlights CRT then this topic will not go away.
But can they?
As there was no there there in Conspiratorial Race Theory as primary school curriculum, the power drained out of the story as the lamestream media could not even find the thinnest of reeds to grasp in weaving a narrative.
The GQP wanted CRT to be Fast n' Furious II: Too Black, Too Scurrilous, but the only thing fast about it was how quickly it fizzled.
Kevin you are correct that this is skirmish but I think you misunderstand what the war is about. This is the same old same old war between the Confederates, the Copperheads (Confederate allies) and those against them. The against are the educated, city dwellers, women, minorities well aware that they lose when the Confederates are in charge. The war is of course who gets to be in charge of the US, the White Male Patriarchy or the Multi gendered, multi racial coalition.
There are no useful compromises to be made as the Confederates/Copperhead have no wish whatsoever to compromise, they want total domination by any means necessary. What we need to do is sort out who is a copperhead so as to not waste time courting them and then gather our allies and get them motivated to hold the line against the Confederates, maybe someday with changing demographics win the war.
You hit the nail on the head. The "Lost Cause" adherents decided to wrap themselves in the flag and religion to get their way, warping both along the way.
The biggest group of voters are independents, and they don't fit well into the Confederates/Copperheads vs. educated others. Also, in CRT there is plenty for liberals to dislike. There is a reason that CRT was obscure thinking among a small number of academics for decades - people just didn't buy that US laws are filled with racism even after overt discrimination in laws had been purged.
Also, European leaders are worried about pernicious CRT thinking arriving in their countries. Are they Confederates/Copperheads too? Or could their concerns have a point?
Independents aren't independents. They are conservatives who are anti-establishment and non-voters (some conservative some left of center). And not they are not big - most folks lie to pollsters are are habitual GOP or Democratic voters.
Independents voted for Trump by a 4-point margin in 2016, but they favored Biden in 2020 by a 13-point margin. Seems they are fence sitters, moderates, and those with low interest in politics. Not sure how you conclude they are conservatives.
I don't even think this about patriotism, it's about reality. And each person's relationship with it.
If you are willing to throw away germ theory and vaccines, youmay be willing to see slavery as a net positive for the country and its citizens. If you are willing to apply principles of law and culture from two thousand years ago to today of execution is plainly the only real recourse for many criminal punishments. If any critical thinking is seen as effete and that of a communist instead favoring rash, violent, overbearing force as a way to resolve conflict, well then there's your problem, not one of loyalty to one's country and the debt one incurs as a citizen of it.
I think we’ll survive whatever state legislators (and appeals judges 🙂 decide on CRT.
I’m not so sure about the issue of over 20% Americans believing Trump won, and 48 senators who won't tell them he lost.
Nor is it really about racism for most people. It's about patriotism.
This is an awfully generous reading -- far too generous IMO.
If it's not about racism, why critical race theory? And why do they (falsely) claim that it holds that "white people are bad"?
What's next? Are we really going to say that the backlash to BLM isn't about race but about support for law and order, and the crazy cultists are merely upset that some people see nuance and ambiguity in the actions of some police?
I half-suspect this post is deliberately provocative ...
You seem to assume that conservative opposition to CRT is more about racism than people being offended by a theory that proclaims the US is a white supremacist nation with systemic racism baked deeply into laws and institutions. Following on the Civil Rights movement, we thought we were doing well in removing discrimination from our laws, but CRT says it's all an illusion. Can't you see how people could want to oppose this thinking without simply having racist motives?
Racists are always offended to be called racists, what else is new. The folks primed by the CRT disinfo are angry because they are being convinced by the disinfo campaign that they are being called out as racists -- their guilty conscience causes them to flip out at the notion.
Before CRT was in the news, plenty of liberals had strong and articulate criticisms of it. This is why it never went mainstream. BLM anger led activists to search for more potent critiques of American society, and this brought CRT thinking forward. CRT teaches that racism is embedded everywhere, and all the laws we thought we had re-worked to be not racist are actually still all racist. CRT fuels anger but also hopelessness.
But you are saying that conservatives cannot oppose CRT for any reason except for their personal racism. That is a pretty low view of people.
Honestly, I don’t see why this is so hard. It’s not difficult to pick out aspects from our history (fighting fascism, putting a man on the moon), our society (one of the most diverse and egalitarian large-scale democracies in world history), or our current events (over 400 million free Covid vaccines delivered in a surprisingly quick and efficient manner) that can be highlighted in a campaign as things to be patriotic about.
“Or do they think that America is at root a racist country created and built by racist white men who also did a few good things along the way?”
As far as I understand CRT, it does in fact resemble this perspective, with emphasis on the power structures, or the “systemic,” aspects of our society. And these power dynamics supposedly make it impossible for Liberalism to accommodate an adequate level of progress for minorities such as blacks. Hence: we’re basically irredeemably racist - it’s just baked in. I don’t think it’s difficult to see how these ideas influence the modern notions of what practitioners unironically call “anti-racism.”
And it’s also easy to see that these CRT ideas are political poison for any kind of national political campaign. DEMs running for national office should, in my view, avoid if not outright repudiate them. Emphasize, instead, the long arc of history that bends towards justice (a view that may be completely irreconcilable with CRT or modern anti-racism).
Emphasize the positives that are so easy to point out (as indicated above), and, even if you lose a few of the extreme Leftist votes, and even if Twitter condemns you as unacceptable (which happened to Biden throughout 2019-2020), then at least you’ll still have a shot at a national campaign.
From a Canadian who travelled a whole lot... If Americans are so patriotic and believe their country is the best in the world, why do they "pretend" to be Canadians when they travel, with flags, on and on. I find this rather unpatriotic and not so "best in the world"....
Why does an odd minority do anything?
A foolish faux question - as obviously among the minority of Americans who travel internationally, one has already a biased sample, never mind it is absurd to think the majority of Americans who travel play pretend Canadian. Some do, have encountered them. They seem to be of the Lefty elite Uni kids profile. Which says very little about Americans broadly. Maybe it says something amusing about the socio-economic profile of those who go to certain elite schools and go backpacking with Canadian flags on their backpacks. Or maybe it's simply largely a silly stereotype bordering on a myth, but certainly is completely irrelevant to Drum's note.
I travelled for a year in Latin America in 1979. For a month I travelled with a Canadian. He had a Canadian flag sewed on the back of his daypack. He told me he was treated well everywhere because nobody hates Canadians. I was surprised at how well I was treated as an American given the recently ended Vietnam War. I never told anyone I was Canadian, but I can see why it might make some travelers feel safer to project at least a superficial image as Canadians rather than warlike Americans (particularly in Latin America). It used to be that due to movies and American pop music, Americans were mostly popular abroad. Not sure that's as true today.
On the other hand ... I worked in Australia for 6 months a while ago. I carried no flag, but Australians kept asking me if I was Canadian.
Now, I know that most Australians can't tell the difference between US northwest accents and Canadian ones (i'm from Seattle). But this happened so often that I started asking why.
I got some variety of "Americans never mind being taken for Canadian, but Canadians HATE always being assumed to be from the US, so the safest thing when I hear a North American accent is to ask the person if they're Canadian".
So it goes both ways.
No wonder the US Left is so bad at winning. Good lord, it's rather obvious that adopting a position that in practical effect tells 60-70% of your voting population that they are The Bad Guys (which is what the effective 1619 etc message is: "Or do they think that America is at root a racist country created and built by racist white men who also did a few good things along the way?") is a wonderful path to losing. Factcity is quite besides the point.
Now should one want to achieve real things - rather than play Faculty Lounge politics as that recent critique went - it is really a no-brainer one needs to have a political position that is We Are Good Guys and X or Y is due to some Bad Guys amongst us. National mythologies and narratives are all mythologies, any coherent nation-state has them.
Left facultly lounge Uni politics is a sure route to losing and handing retrograde parties power, ensuring worse outcomes.
Shoot the egghead intello abstraction discourse in the back of the head, bury it and engage with populist mythology, and play judo with it to your own best effect.
Very ugly metaphor for a civilized discussion. Leave the shooting out of it.
Never mind that the Great Conspiratorial Race Theory Brouhaha of the Commonwealth of Virginia Elections 2021 is looking more & more like 2014's Borderland Under Siege-Mexican Ebola Babies in Suicidevests Attacks, but it's shocking how shortlived the fauxntroversies of the Biden-Harris era are. Where Seuss cancellation, & Potatohead neutering are hardly six months old but seem about twenty years ago, the Cornhusker Kickback* & Solyndra linger to this very day in the Fevered Swamp. & even Let's Go Brandon has shown about 1/10 the staying power of Thanks, Obama. It's wild how little the GQP can actually get to stick the the shitlibz in the Delaware Regency.
But who knows, maybe ornery 2012 KopalaHarris underling Gil Duran will be the secret ingredient to a double impeachment. Combine Gilby Quark** with Hunter Biden's failed letter of recommendation for Tucker Carlson's son, & it's all over Baby Blue America.
*Excised from the final version of PPACA, but not according to these National Review & Jacobin editorial meetings.
**Quark, given how picayune Duran's complaints are.
Obama did a great job celebrating our country and acknowledging that it can be better. And talk about a conniption. The Republicans really threw a fit.
Good point. I voted straight ticket Republican back in those days, but I see that now. Biden is not as good at it.
Critical Race Theory is nothing more than noneuropeans misunderstanding Indo European history after the dark ages. There was no "slavery" really until 1689. Everything before was indentured servitude. Yes, there were blacks that owned indentured servants after gaining freedom and white's also came over as indentured servants in the 17th century. Serfdom was the SOP. But modern negros don't get history. They just want to whine and cover up their modern failings. Maybe they should return to Africa and protest African aristocratic lineages who sold them as n the first place??? While European Serfs demand reparations for the 1000 years+ of Serfdom. That basically is the idiocy of critical race theory. It's no different than Nazi Germanic based theories of the Aryan nonsense.
Meh
Republicans hate this country with it's Medicare and roads and safety rules.
They just like to deface the flag with blue lines while doing it.
I teach history for a living, and Kevin has hit the nail on the head here. Most commenters are blaming the entire dynamic on the right-wing trying to sanitize history. But none of the conservative history teachers that I know teach any caricature of the past - they teach all the ugly with the good. However, they come down on the side of saying: show me which other nation in history has done a clearly better job since 1776 of promoting democratic government and individual rights?
However, some of my progressive colleagues teach U.S. history as nothing but a long, unbroken string of utter evils, one after the other. What little good in history was an attempt to fight back and, essentially, tear down America because there's nothing worthwhile about the nation. Before the CRT uproar, this was essentially the view of Howard Zinn.
CRT is basically Zinn but through a racial lens rather than class. Under the CRT view of history, America is cancerous to its very bones and is irredeemable. To them, America (at least as most people understand the concept of the American nation) cannot be salvaged. The entirety of America since the start (1607 or 1619 or 1776) has been a massive mistake, and it is time to scrap it. That obviously does not sit very well with people who think that America is worth saving.
Personally, I think CRT has its uses in an academic setting as an intellectual analysis approach, but it is utterly toxic when widespread in society precisely because the result is total social disintegration, and we are seeing played out in front of us. Social disintegration is seen as a positive development in CRT, so most of the CRT-positive scholars I know are enjoying our current atmosphere.
I don't see why schools can't highlight the positives in our history while also being sure to point out key shortcomings. People can agree that slavery, Jim Crow laws, mistreatment of indigenous peoples, women denied the vote and so on were wrong. You don't have to state the US is the greatest country in the world. Just highlighting the positives adequately shows we've done well and made steady progress in a huge number of ways.
But many today want to put our shortcomings front and center and downplay all the positive aspects of US history. They say the country is crap - it's a White Supremacist society built around systemic racism. 1619 was the country's real founding. The US is xenophobic, homophobic, and misogynistic - a backward land full of gun nuts, religious zealots, and Trumpy people. Most of the founders of the US were despicable since more than half owned slaves. The Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial should be torn down or moved. All persons and events in US history are to be judged by the standards of today.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the whole debate for me is that so many people can read, for example, Nikole Hannah-Jones' introductory essay to The 1619 Project and miss the bone-deep and passionate patriotism that undergirds it.
As NBA coach Doc Rivers said last year in the wake of Jacob Blake's shooting (in the back, by armed officers of the state), "It's amazing why we keep loving this country, and this country doesn't love us back."
As a boy in Australia, I loved the United States. I loved Disney and Marvel comic books. I especially loved those half-size war comic books, full of wise-cracking GIs and "Seabees" sending nips and huns to ugly deaths. I loved Mad Magazine, full of affectionate satire of Americans and biting satire of communism. I loved Hollywood movies, especially westerns. I loved Lucy and Mr Ed and those Three Sons. God help me, I even loved 'Readers Digest' and cars with massive fins and rumbling V-8s. I dreamed of one day owning an imported Nash Rambler.
I suspect that's the America the Trump Republicans love. It's also one where women 'knew their place', 'minorities' were practically invisible, making jokes about the notorious foibles of both groups was normal, gays were 'perverts', discrimination was both lawful and commonplace, lots of people lived in gruesome poverty and monotony, sexual assault was rampant and usually tolerated, and so on.
Trump Republicans seem to me to believe that all that unpleasant stuff is in the past, so it's unnecessary and undesirable to teach kids about it or even talk about it, because it only encourages futile discussion of concepts like 'blame' and 'remorse' and (God forbid) 'contrition'. Which would only divide the nation and upset the kiddies. Just build the Garden of American Heroes and take the class on a field trip every term. That will teach them all the history they need to know.
Saying hysteria about CRT isn't about race, it's about patriotism is a way to shield the bigots from criticism. It's like Heartland, Values Voters, and Economic Anxiety. It's bullshit Kevin, you should be ashamed of yourself. You know better.
+4000 dollars of economic anxiety withdrawn from the Crumbley checking account
We are the victims of history unfortunately. Since the war of 1812 very few battles have taken place on American soil and very few civilians have been killed.
Yet in Europe entire generations were wiped out between WWI, and II. cities were leveled - civilians died by the millions - old and young, male and female.
Why do some liberals believe that it is the republicans fault that we can't have nice things here like they do in Europe? Try telling an American women in the mid to late 1940s that 90% of the males in their village will NOT be coming home, and that THEY will have to be the politicians that run the cities and town, run the police and fire departments and do any other job because they HAD to in order to survive.
THATS why they have health care, and child care and why they had women leaders before we did. In order to survive they had to provide for what was left of their families with food, medicine and do it all in a safe area. Any thoughts of misogyny in Europe are dashed by THEIR history.
OURS? Our women returned home, had babies and gladly let the men take over - giving up enormous economic clout in doing so. We wonder why we treat women differently? I have often wondered if the shoe was on the other foot, if the Europeans would have provided aid to us after the war to help us rebuild? I wonder if we would have had a Golda Meir long before we had a Barack Obama. With the exception of Rosa Parks most of the other "notable" civil rights leaders were all males. Europeans have taken women and treated them as equals (Or superiors) since the 50s it seems.
But today if you criticize a woman you are a misogynist, if you criticize a POC you are racist, and so on. It is a really weird dynamic here in the U.S. We have been graciously spared much of the civilian suffering from the world wars. We are very spoiled
Since the war of 1812 very few battles have taken place on American soil and very few civilians have been killed.
Bobby Lee and US Grant would like a word.
I think this dichotomy goes way back before the Cold War. I suspect it's rooted in psychology, as has been noted about the difference between liberals (who value fairness) and conservatives (who value order).
For instance, I'll bet a lot of the smart folks in here are familiar with Orwell's famous essay on HG Wells, published in August 1941. A key excerpt:
"What has kept England on its feet during the past year? In part, no doubt, some vague idea about a better future, but chiefly the atavistic emotion of patriotism, the ingrained feeling of the English-speaking peoples that they are superior to foreigners. For the last twenty years the main object of English left-wing intellectuals has been to break this feeling down, and if they had succeeded, we might be watching the S.S. men patrolling the London streets at this moment. Similarly, why are the Russians fighting like tigers against the German invasion? In part, perhaps, for some half-remembered ideal of Utopian Socialism, but chiefly in defence of Holy Russia (the “sacred soil of the Fatherland,” etc. etc.), which Stalin has revived in an only slightly altered form. The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions—racial pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war—which liberal intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves as to have lost all power of action...
Mr. Wells, like Dickens, belongs to the non-military middle class. The thunder of guns, the jingle of spurs, the catch in the throat when the old flag goes by, leave him manifestly cold. He has an invincible hatred of the fighting, hunting, swashbuckling side of life, symbolised in all his early books by a violent propaganda against horses...."
A few years back, I would have agreed that Republicans or conservatives love their country, just in a different way, but I have to say Trump and especially Jan. 6 has changed my thinking. I think it's clear Republicans and conservatives love the country because white people, and especially wealthy white men, are in charge. They think that's what makes the US special and valuable and they are angry about the idea that the American system of government might change to put someone else in charge. They'll toss the American system if it means giving up power, it seems.
White people???
Trumps a jew ancestry. Most of his followers are as well. Oh the paradox. Sounds like a con to me. Think about it.
DFPaul, to further my point, what is "white"??? Seems like movement conservativism is more important than pure race. White's don't get much power from lame Republicans Trump represents. They simply do not. They want to believe it, which is the con. It's why the great depression was so bad for Republicans in the long run. Once trust is destroyed, it takes long to come back. Democrats ignoring small towns have faced this issue now. Conservatives are based on debt and economic globalism. Capitalism is struggling. We can only grow 1% now and truth told it may go to 0% soon enough. Once the global window closes, the disruption to everyday life will be immense. Will we see a white man from rural Indiana hold up a sign "capitalism was a lie" as his small town bankrupts and starvation sets in???? Trying to organise racial theory around capitalism is dead in the long run for white people.