Before I get into the body of this piece, I would like to ruminate on the fact that I am just now venturing into the realm of political commentary, after many years of containing my writing to the realms of the arts, personal reflection, comedy, and once in a great while, social commentary. That’s not by coincidence, it’s by commitment.
Keep in mind that I, beginning from a younger age than most, expressed in deep interest in politics. I devoted much of my collegiate studies to them, and have never been afraid to steer a conversation in a political direction, be it with close confidants or present company. But writing about them in a public medium, I’ve learned to resist the temptation.
This has been primarily for two reasons. The first is because published writing, especially on the web, is immortal. Political opinions, particularly my own, have proven to be the opposite. Throughout the time where my opinion on political matters has been worth anything, I’ve swung from one end of the political spectrum to the other, a Christian conservative in high school to secular liberal in college.
Now I would say I’m somewhere else entirely, a dot outside the lines of the map. This evolution of thought developed in me a personal fear of revisiting my own political writing at a future date, and becoming filled with disgust at what I now perceive as backwards opinion, potentially fueled by misinformation and irrationalism. Now I can only hope that I have reached a level of intellectual maturity where that isn’t a possibility.
Second, you might notice that this blog is still called, “Because I’m Unemployed,” well over after I started it, neglected it, and re-committed myself to it. Truth be told, I haven’t been living all that time without an income. I have been writing as a freelancer, working a contracted transcribing job, and did hold a part-time minimum wage job for a while when I was still living in D.C. Of course, to someone with a Bachelor’s Degree, those don’t really count as employment. Nor do they to their parents, who forked over $100,000 to see them earn it. Sorry Mom and Dad, I’m trying.
I think the fear of being disqualified for a position due to the expression of one’s political opinion is a source of stress for everyone, especially because it has proven true. Just ask the West Virginia county official who was fired for referring to Michelle Obama as an “ape in heels” on Facebook. That’s an extreme example, but I would opine that a world where people live in fear of raising their voice on political issues of great concern to them at the risk of joblessness is a misguided one, particularly when that world claims to function under a Democracy. But the time has come where the need for a dialogue among our people is greater than ever before, and I would hope that any potential employer who stumbles upon this will at least credit me for taking the risk.
We are preparing enter the (gulp) Trump Era, a time that I assert with the highest confidence will be an unequivocally negative period in our country’s history, if it’s not the final one. Our Democracy is ill, and is lacking the key ingredient to a healthy one: an informed and cultivated electorate.
As British satirist Jonathan Pie noted in his brilliant post-election rant (video NSFW), people, particularly on the left, need to stop labeling, shaming, and writing off those who dare to voice a different opinion, particularly on social issues.
The marketplace of ideas has been purged and sequestered. Our electorate is starved for proper discourse. If you participate in Democracy, what you have to say is worth saying and worth hearing. If you have a voice, I will open my eyes and ears for it if you will do the same for mine, as long as we remember to separate facts and sense from ignorance and bigotry. Persuasion is progress, and only cowards hide behind stone walls.
Oh jeez, that turned out to be a lot lengthier than I intended. Ah well.
Anyway, what I wanted to talk about as I sat down to write this is Nationalism, a central characteristic of President-Elect Trump as well as his base. Ironic that his perception of the so-called greatest country on Earth is as a diesel-punkesque wasteland riddled with crime and poverty from coast to coast, but it is what it is.
I’ll hazard a guess that the US-of-A is one of the few, if not only, countries where a majority of the clothing, household trinkets and other products bearing the American flag and other national symbols are sold more to domestic residents than international tourists. My bedroom, furnished and decorated when I was an adolescent is littered with them. One such item is a white plank painted with the word “FREEDOM” that used to hang above my bed, and now occupies the dark cavern beneath it.
Patriotism is as definitive of America as pumpkin pie and those amber waves of grain. It’s to the extent that, if in the wrong place, one faces the threat of assault should they insist that the United States isn’t the single greatest nation the Earth has ever known.
As I discussed in my previous post, the United States is by all definitions a spectacular nation, and our rapid ascension to the pedestal of world superpowers rivals only that of Rome. Our innovations in government, technology, economics, entertainment and the military number in the thousands; and no other country on the planet can say they’ve complete withstood American influence. If we were in a real-life game of Sid Meier’s Civilization, America almost certainly would have won. Of course, if you were to rely solely on metrics in your argument that America is #1, you would find several pitfalls, as Jeff Daniels points out in the first scene of “The Newsroom.”
It’s not surprising that so many Americans are so convinced in their homeland’s superiority, and are willing to defend the notion so ravenously. Just look at how we are educated. We are taught that America began as the little nation that could, rising up and achieving independence from the most powerful empire in the world, only to fill that role itself less than 200 years later. We established the rules of modern Democracy that the rest of world’s government draw inspiration from. We are the conquerors of the frontier, both the one out of west and beyond the sky. We are the land of the free, the opportune, the melting pot, and the prevailing heroes of World Wars I and II. It is the names of our leaders, and no one else’s, that are common knowledge to people around the world.
Now while those assertions are true for the most part, the government doesn’t exactly try to be subtle about it. At the start every day in American classrooms, from when a child is five-years-old until after they become a legal adult, they are asked to stand, look at the flag, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Say that out loud to yourself: Pledge of Allegiance. Does an oath of loyalty, highlighting the virtues of the union, sound like something that has a proper place in a Democracy or a Dictatorship?
Through our system of public education, our government works to instill the narrative of American superiority. It is also evident that certain states will take measures to reinforce the narrative when they deem it threatened by truth. That being so, we would be right as citizens to not only question our government’s motivations, but also reflect upon our historical teachings with skepticism; not at the facts, but how they were presented, and what information went untold.
Think back to how much attention your courses gave to the Holocaust. I remember my eighth grade English course devoting an entire three months to it, diving into multiple pieces of literature and film on the subject, as well as a trip to the Holocaust Museum. On The Trail of Tears however, I recall my textbooks lending no more than three paragraphs to it.
The wisest historians look at the past and its lessons through objective eyes, and many of them will testify that in the age of empires, Nationalism was a direct cause of multitudes of wars and invasions, leaving millions of corpses in its wake. To be Nationalistic is to place the wants and needs of your country and its people ahead of all others, effectively to dehumanize all those of a different origin, which no one has ever been able to choose.
Nationalism is blinding, and dangerous. It paints our perceptions with a mirage, causing us to look at our deep-rooted faults and misdeeds as inconceivable, casting ourselves as the protagonist in conflicts when we may not be. Feelings of national pride are rooted in love and devotion, but Nationalism corrupts those emotions into illusions of perfection and freedom from accountability.
A nation, just like a religion, government, club, any other social construct is not solely defined by any scribed code of laws and ethics, but by the sum of all their parts. Only a minute fraction of the answer to the question “What is America?” lies in our Constitution. The rest of it comes from our people, how we think and behave.
When a state operates under a Representative Democracy, it’s easy to get a clear picture of who we are, as our elected officials are chosen as a manifestation of our ideals. We just selected Donald Trump and Mike Pence to be the faces of our nation, to which they become the first and second clauses of our objective definition, with their selection of cabinet members and administrative leaders following suit. Until 2020, we will be a reflection of them whether we want to or not.
I could compose here a list of all the wicked transgressions those men have committed in their climb to the highest positions of power, but those who care to acknowledge them are probably already aware. But I will summarize by saying that Trump and the administration he is forging is characterized by: racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, corruption, greed, deception, fear, a denial of truth and the construction of a self-serving reality.
I don’t love America right now. I’m hard pressed to find aspects I like about it, at least that can’t be found elsewhere. That is, with the exception of the First Amendment, easily the most important and virtuous piece of law ever recorded in our nation’s history, and a right that none of us should ever take for granted. My thumb is turned down toward the United States right now, and I thank it for allowing me to.
We are not obliged to love anything we are born into; not our bodies, not our families, not our homelands. We are free to assess and judge all of our predetermined circumstances completely on how they have treated us. If the American institutions have undeservedly restricted you from reaching your full potential, impeded your pursuit of happiness, or have gone against what is perceived as right and fair; your contempt is not only justified, but righteous.
I would say to all of us who hold feelings of resentment and outrage toward America, who plan on sticking around to see it through, we are obliged to make our voices louder, our reasoning sharper, and our suffering more visible to those who see our malaise as treason. Our rejection of Nationalism is not a rejection of America. To those who are bothered by American citizens denouncing their own country, I would suggest asking why, and what can be done to change their mind.
‘Love It Or Leave It?’ How about ‘Fix It So I Can Love It And Aren’t Forced To Leave It, Or Stay And Be Miserable.’
While America has been designated ‘The Leader of The Free World’ ever since the 1950s, it appears that with the election of Trump we can no longer hold such a title, and the consensus is that the role has been passed onto Germany, under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Remember less than a century ago when the German government represented pure evil and all the horrid atrocities humanity was capable of committing. The fact that they’ve managed to pull a complete 180 in the time since is astounding, and therein even the deepest of American cynics can find optimism. By the way, you won’t find an abbreviated desscription of the Third Reich and World War II in any German textbook, nor a German flag in any of their classrooms.
In the first half of the 20th century, Europe learned its Nationalism lesson the hard way, the hardest and cruelest way. America is about to get a spoonful of the same medicine. Let’s all hope the price isn’t nearly as steep.
Because I'm Unemployed 