During the early Obama years, I was invited to address the Republican committee of a rural county in the Deep South. One of the members asked why I thought the GOP had lost the recent election. I replied that it had turned its back on the principle of localism: federal spending had soared, states’ rights had been trampled, Washington had presumed to dictate policy on everything from education to gay marriage.
Even as I spoke the words, I winced inwardly. Gay marriage: not the wisest example to bring before the Republican Committee of a rural county in the Deep South. Sure enough, after I had finished, an enormous man with sunburn and a beard swaggered over to me.
“Son, Ah ‘preciate you comin,’ ” he said, hitching his jeans over his massive belly. “An’ Ah ‘greed with most of wut you said. But Ah must vehemently disagree with yo’ views on so-called homosexual marriage.”
Here we go, I thought, bracing myself for a tirade.
“Far as Ah’m concerned,” he went on, “not bein’ under any pressure to git married is one of the main advantages Ah enjoy as a gay man.”
Truly, I thought, this is an incredible country. Every time you think you’ve understood it, it surprises you. The sheer diversity of the United States makes anti-Americanism an act of misanthropy. All humanity is here: every color, every shape, every shade of opinion.
What, then, are we to make of a poll, reported on by the Washington Examiner last week, showing that, while 92 percent of Americans love their country, only 51 percent believe that President Obama shares their devotion?
I have no doubt that Barack Obama loves America after his own fashion. It’s in the nature of America that almost everyone — a Left Bank Paris intellectual, an anti-yanqui Venezuelan, a Syrian jihadi — can find something to admire. President Obama’s list would differ from yours, but it would be sincere.
Mine is no doubt different again. I love America’s obsession with immediacy and convenience: not just drive-thru Dunkin Donuts, but drive-thru wedding chapels. I love the fact that every city stages a Shakespeare festival, yet Americans persist in thinking of their national culture as low-brow. I love “The Simpsons” and “The Wire” and “America’s Dumbest Criminals.” I love the unembarrassed way that tips are sought and given. I love the sincere way in which people ask how you are. (Hint: if a Brit asks you, he really, really doesn’t want to know.) I love the courtliness, coupled with the false yet ineradicable belief that Americans are less formal than Europeans. I love Emily Dickinson’s verses. I have even made the horrible discovery that, at some point in your forties, you start liking country music. I especially love the guileless enthusiasm. At the last Republican National Convention in Tampa, the official who showed me to my seat said: “Just in case the camera is on you, try to behave like an American: no eye-rolling!”
Most people, as I say, could come up with a list along these lines. But I don’t think this is what Obama’s critics have in mind. America isn’t just a place; its also an idea. That is why there is such a thing as anti-Americanism, but not anti-Armenianism or anti-Algerianism or anti-Arubanism.
So let’s make a second, more important, list. A list, not of incidental attributes and cultural peculiarities, but of fundamental values. It’s this second list that defines America — and, by extension, defines anti-Americanism.
1. High expectations
The mindset that creates drive-thru chapels also creates an expectation that politicians will deliver for their constituents. Some readers may raise their eyebrows at this idea but, believe me, you should see where I work.
2. Localism
Jealousy over states’ rights creates the pluralism, the competition, that guarantees America’s prosperity.
3. Democracy
Nowhere else do people get to elect public officials from the school board and the sheriff to the garbage guy. American officials are servants, not rulers.
4. Restrictions on government
Term limits, balanced budget amendments, referendum mechanisms, the separation of powers.
5. Suspicion of government
Nowhere else in the world will you see “Love my country, hate my government” bumper stickers.
6. Charity
Americans give more to good causes than anyone else on Earth, topping the World Giving Index. This generosity partly reflects the friendly denominational competition that comes from religious pluralism. Mainly, though, it follows from 4 and 5.
7. Sovereignty
The readiness of other states to accept the jurisdiction of international courts and global technocracies is one of the mysteries of our age. America alone upholds the principle that laws should be made only by representatives answerable to the rest of us.
8. History
No other nation preserves its battlefields and historic houses so tenderly. Americans like to think they live in a young country, but there are few states in the world that still have an eighteenth-century constitution.
9. Patriotism
Millions have come from every continent and archipelago and become loyal Americans. Foreigners sometimes sneer at the more overt displays of patriotism — the bunting, the flags in yards — but they make possible the miracle of integration.
10. Freedom
All the others lead up to this one. Freedom of speech, of religion, of assembly, of contract; freedom from overweening government. Look around the world and see how rare these things are.
It’s this second catalog that seems to leave the president cold. Many Leftists see listing these things as arrogant, self-congratulatory, even racist. These are the American attributes they want to “fundamentally transform”. Me? I try to imagine what the world would be like without them, and I shudder.
Dan Hannan is a British Conservative member of the European Parliament.
