ON PATRIOTISM

“This sense that America is in need of fixing in order to be a great country points to Obama’s real patriotism problem. And it’s not Obama’s alone. Definitions of patriotism proliferate, but in the American context patriotism must involve not only devotion to American texts (something that distinguishes our patriotism from European nationalism) but also an abiding belief in the inherent and enduring goodness of the American nation. We might need to change this or that policy or law, fix this or that problem, but at the end of the day the patriotic American believes that America is fundamentally good as it is. It’s the ‘good as it is’ part that has vexed many on the left since at least the Progressive era. Marxists and other revolutionaries obviously don’t believe entrepreneurial and religious America is good as it is. But even more mainstream figures have a problem distinguishing patriotic reform from reformation... Obama... will ‘remake’ the country. Well, what if you don’t want it remade? And Michelle Obama—who believes America is ‘downright mean’ and is proud of America for the first time because of her husband’s success—insists that Barack will make you ‘work’ for change and that he will ‘demand that you, too, be different.’ What if you don’t want to work for Obama’s change? What if you don’t want to be ‘different’?... The notion that what America needs is a redeemer figure to ‘remake’ America from scratch isn’t necessarily unpatriotic. But for lots of Americans who like America the way it is, it’s sometimes hard to tell when it isn’t.”

—Jonah Goldberg