The European far left has always despised America, going back to the Cold War. But the great lie of that constituency is that its hatred is motivated by what America does rather than what America is.
In fact, the underlying basis for their hatred is rooted in their belief that American individualism and national pride is inherently immoral. Because they believe in class-based rather than nationality-based identity politics, the European far left sees America’s national pride and relative lack of class consciousness as antithetical to their ideology.
We gained a stellar example of this at the Labour Party conference in Britain last week, as a side panel discussed national identity and patriotism in modern Britain. One speaker, a college lecturer, Kojo Koram noted what he saw as the better side of British patriotism as compared to American patriotism.
Britain, he said, is “a country that has always had a certain distaste for overt flag-waving, kind of, the crude nationalism of places like the United States.”
Note here the appropriation of language to misrepresent the American national identity. Koram’s contention is that American flag-waving is basically a pernicious nationalism of the kind that defines authoritarian states. His natural implication is that American patriotism is exclusionary rather than inclusive.
But what Koram and his contemporaries utterly ignore is the fact that American patriotism is built not around any particular political ideology, nationalist or otherwise. Rather it is built around the nation’s sustaining ideals: freedom, the Constitution, and community. And missing this truth, Koram also misses the reality of the American community. That the American community is itself built on local communities; social, school, sports, faith, or otherwise, but always defined by America per se. Not by a global class identity.
Correspondingly, the European far left’s ignorance means it cannot stand America.
