Last week, the family and I decided to get away to Maine for a few days. As we made our way north along the coast, we stopped at Anthony’s Food Shop just outside York. I've been going to Antony’s since I was a little boy, when we’d spend our summers with my grandparents on Long Sands. That was before they installed the pizza oven and the café. Back then, they only sold tubs of pasta salad and the best whoopie pies in New England.
For me, Anthony's is the threshold to summer, to sunshine, to campfires, to the sea, to family.
I stood in line behind a family with a little boy about eight years old and, judging by the look on his face, he felt the same way I did. Then a middle-aged man made his way to the counter. He wore a goatee and fingerless gloves. On the back of his sweatshirt, there was a picture of Old Glory; it said, “If this flag offends you, I’ll help you pack.”
Obviously, he was a motorcyclist. And I watched as he jostled in front of this boy and his mother to grab a candy bar from the display next to them. If he’d actually shoved those folks in line, we would’ve had words. But he didn’t. Mother and son shuffled awkwardly out of the way as He-Man (all five feet and five inches of him) got his Almond Joy and strutted over to the cashier.
I admit, I have a special loathing for bikers. Not for motorcycles, which I love, but for the kind of folks who tend to ride them. They’re the only people on the planet who think they’re tough because their hobby is sitting down. They’re too lazy to peddle their bicycle, and they think that somehow makes them Genghis Khan.
Not that I’m bitter or anything.
Anyway, this chappy in the chaps probably has most of the same political views that I do. He must have been some sort of Trumpy populist/protectionist with paranoid, anti-government leanings. He was, in short, what we call a nationalist. And I got to thinking, “Why exactly are you so hot on that flag, anyway? What is it that you love about our country, if not this little boy and his mom on vacation in Maine?” What are you taking a stand for, if not for them?
On the way home, we were passed by a brand-new Ford F-150 going about 90 mph in the right lane. There were two flags planted in the bed: the Stars and Stripes and the Gadsden Flag. Again, this guy was “one of us.” Suddenly, he swerved and cut across the middle lane to get around a Kia going sixty-five. I watched his taillights dodging through traffic so he could get to the packie at 8:42 instead of 8:45. At one point, he nearly took out a minivan with a set of those awful stick figure family decals.
I'm sure the driver of that Ford takes pride in the fact that he buys American. I'm sure he likes the idea of helping an American worker to feed his family. As well he should! But what if he ran that worker and his family off the road playing Fast and Furious on the Piscataqua Bridge?
Slowly, it dawned on me. This is why I was never quite comfortable with the new nationalist movement. We talked a lot about loving our country, but very little about loving our countrymen.
Now, look: the usual disclaimers apply. I don't mean for this to be a holier-than-thou type of article. (Really, I’m as bad as anyone. When I pass someone with a “Coexist” bumper sticker, I almost wish I drove a diesel so I could roll them some coal.) And I know that these goons aren’t representative of the Trumpist/populist/nationalist movement. Etc. etc.
Still, this is my big gripe with modern American politics. It seems to me that politics is a way of pawning off all of our problems on the State.
Conservatives want the government to help the American people. But why aren’t we helping our fellow Americans in the meantime? Progressives want the government to take action against “systemic racism.” But what are they doing to help non-white folks in the meantime? Libertarians want to strip the government down to its skivvies so we can all enjoy maximal freedom. But what do libertarians actually do with the freedoms in the meantime?
This is why I gave up on journalism. The solution to our country’s woes is not politics, because politics itself is the problem. It's an excuse for good men not to act on their convictions. We’ve been trained to think that we need permission from an electoral majority before trying to do something good for our country—and for our countrymen.
Of course, even if we get our majority, it’s not we who will act. It’s an unseen army of faceless bureaucrats who answer to our champion: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Gary Johnson... whoever it may be.
As for us? Why, we can do whatever we like. As long as the government is following our principles, we ourselves don’t have to.
So, we can tune into Fox News and hear about how corporate media is trying to destroy our republic. We can go on Facebook and post about how Mark Zuckerberg is censoring conservative voices. And we can spend our time online shopping for a sweatshirt that say “Be American, Buy American.” We’ll save a mint, too, since it’s made in China. (Unlike that dumb hypocrite AOC, who employs union workers in American factories instead of Asian wage-slaves. What a scumbag!)
Do you want to support Middle America? Well, go right ahead! Vote with your wallet. Put your money where your mouth is. Pay extra for the organic, free-range eggs at the farm stand down the road. Instead of throwing away your shoes, get the soles replaced by the cobbler downtown. If you need a prescription filled, go to the independent pharmacist.
We say we believe in small businesses. Why, then, do we give all our money to CVS and Burger King and Amazon? How can we claim to love family farms if we don’t love that family farm, right there—the one we pass every day on the way to Walmart?
Real men of principle are guided by their principles. Maybe their whole country stands behind them; maybe they stand alone. It doesn’t matter. If we don’t live by our convictions, they’re not really convictions. They’re preferences, notions, fancies. That’s all.
Which is why I’m a big fan of Teddy Roosevelt. His nationalism wasn’t only, or even mainly, about politics. It was an ethic—one that informs the way he interacted with his neighbors, his countrymen.
At the heart of Teddy’s philosophy wasn’t a sweeping government program (though he had a few of those). No: he called for “a genuine and permanent moral awakening, without which no wisdom of legislation or administration really means anything.”
That awakening, he hoped, would bring about a new system—one “under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best there is in him.” This new system would help me to become the sort of man “who embodies victorious effort; who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life.”
America would serve my interests, so that I can serve my fellow Americans.
That’s my main beef with the new Republican Party. When we had Teddy at the helm, the GOP’s nationalism was both strong and benevolent. It was about me placing myself at the service of you, my fellow citizen of this republic. The new nationalism under Trump can, at times, seem both weak and malicious. Like that sweatshirt. It’s about being vaguely menacing to the people around us, knowing there’s about a 0% chance we’ll have to answer for our malice.
Once again, I’m not saying this is the case for most (or even many) Trump supporters. It’s not the case for any of them that I know personally. But I’ve met folks like this at Trump rallies, county fares, etc. It’s out there. And it’s only because I believe in nationalism that I would criticize the nationalist movement.
Make America Great Again, we say. Well, great for whom?
For me, yes. For you. But also for that little boy getting pizza at Anthony’s. And for the jerk in the F-150. And for the family in the minivan with the dumb stick figure decals. And for the He-Man with the Almond Joy. And, yes, for the liberal with the “Coexist” sticker on his Prius.
If our nationalism doesn’t aim to make America great for all Americans, it’s unworthy of the name. No, it’s not “nationalism” at all. It’s just another form of welfarism. We’re only milking the government to make life better for ourselves and for people like us.
True nationalists love their countrymen, just as true Christians love their neighbor. That goes even (or especially) for those of who don’t share our view of the world. Nationalism is a form of unconditional, self-sacrificing love; factionalism by definition is self-serving. Its love comes with a loyalty test.
You don’t need me to tell you that America is deeply riven by factionalism. The two-party system is metastasizing—spreading from Washington, D.C., and infecting every home in America.
There are those who would divide us strictly between conservatives and progressives, Republicans and Democrats. We therefore have a duty to declare our independence. We’re made to be more than mere partisans.
Don’t be an elephant. Don’t be a donkey. Be a bull moose.