The Democratic National Convention has featured the national anthem and the American flag, but Republicans are questioning whether the speakers are expressing the level of national pride voters have come to expect.
In brief remarks seconding Bernie Sanders’s presidential nomination on Tuesday night, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democratic congresswoman seen as a rising star in the party, described American history as a litany of “racial injustice, colonization, misogyny, and homophobia, and to propose and build reimagined systems of immigration and foreign policy that turn away from the violence and xenophobia of our past.” These were all “wounds” the Vermont socialist senator’s “mass people’s movement” was striving to “repair.”
“Unless you’re Native American, your family likely came here from somewhere else, whether it was five years ago or 200 years ago. Whether it was by choice or by bondage,” said actress Kerry Washington as she emceed the convention on Wednesday night. Washington acknowledged “who we are as a nation is the very idea that though you may be from somewhere else, you can find your home here,” but added, “that idea is in danger, now more than ever before.”
“The Democratic Party should remember some of their leaders of the past who were strong, patriotic Americans and led by example,” said Republican strategist Jon Gilmore. “Our parties shouldn’t even have to debate patriotism to America. And it is disturbing how the Left has shifted in their viewpoint of our nation.”
Commentator Mary Eberstadt likened the proceedings to Democrat-turned-Republican U.S. Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s “San Francisco Democrats,” who, she said, at the 1984 Republican National Convention renominating Ronald Reagan for president, “always blame America first.”
“But its target is no longer American foreign policy,” Eberstadt wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “It is instead the U.S. at large: its history, its institutions and its place in the world.”
Liberals have long argued for frank discussion of the flaws in American history, especially slavery and other manifestations of racism. But Democratic politicians have usually been careful to couch them in national pride. “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America,” Bill Clinton said in his first inaugural address in 1993.
Barack Obama also participated in the tradition of arguing the nation’s founding, though flawed, pointed America in the direction of fixing its errors. “I’m in Philadelphia, where our Constitution was drafted and signed. It wasn’t a perfect document,” he said in his speech on Wednesday night. “It allowed for the inhumanity of slavery and failed to guarantee women, and even men who didn’t own property, the right to participate in the political process.” Obama continued, “But embedded in this document was a North Star that would guide future generations; a system of representative government, a democracy, through which we could better realize our highest ideals.”
“So, to all the young people: Don’t give up on America,” said Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, on Wednesday night. “Despite our flaws and problems, we have come so far.”
But there have been recent intellectual trends on the Left emphasizing those flaws more than ever before. The New York Times’s 1619 Project teaches that the actual founding of the United States began with slavery, and racism remains ubiquitous as a result.
Following the protests against systemic racism after George Floyd’s death, some polls showed a decline in national pride. Gallup found it at a record low in June, with only 24% of Democrats saying they were “extremely proud” to be Americans. Republican pride was also down by 9 points. National anthem protests have become commonplace at professional sporting events.
“In the midst of a pandemic and economic collapse, I think Americans are more focused on the present than concerned about depictions of the past,” said Republican strategist Christian Ferry. “This election is really about the incumbent, as are most reelection campaigns.”
