I don't want to spend a lot of time on President Trump's 4th of July speeches. They weren't great, and the fact that he felt he had to make TWO of them speaks to the desperation he's been showing lately. That desperation also shows in the fact that the speeches were clearly aimed at dividing people and whipping up racial animosity.
The President’s rhetoric, as this CNN piece notes, painted a frightening, simplistic view of current events and American history. “Trump's 40-minute speech was a master class in rhetorical deception. He lumped together the racists of the Confederacy with the figures on Mt. Rushmore, insisting they are all being reconsidered in the same way,” wrote Michael D'Antonio. “Several elected officials have ordered the removal of Confederate monuments in an effort to recognize the painful legacy of slavery, while the debate over monuments of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt is more nuanced, given their positive contributions to the nation. No sweeping effort is being made to remove all of these monuments and to suggest one exists amounts to sounding a false alarm.”
Kind of like yelling fire in a crowded theater. And Trump’s incendiary rhetoric continues to inflame some Americans. In Trump’s world, peaceful protestors are called “criminals” and “terrorists.” The leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement are branded “Marxists” (which some of them are) and therefore deemed to hate America (they don’t), under the assumption that no good American can be a Marxist (they can).
This Red Scare tactic has become very popular on the right, it is a depressing reminder that the more things change, the more things stay the same. Not only do white conservatives reflexively resort to the Love It or Leave It construct, where any criticism of our obviously imperfect union means that we hate our country (we don’t), the critics have to be tarred with that tired cliché of Marxism—whether it fits them or not.
When considering the speeches made by Trump this weekend, I was reminded of two other speeches, written 168 years apart, both made on or near the 4th of July holiday. One was by the freed slave Frederick Douglass, the other by the first African-American President, Barack Obama. Both men noted that our nation is far from perfect, Douglass, understandably, was more critical of the country he lived in than Obama was of the USA in 2008. But both are worth reading.
Douglass noted that the BLM of 1776—the American Revolution—was not for the faint of heart--that the Founding Fathers were willing to turn to violence, even (gasp!) willing to destroy private property, to pursue justice and freedom.
“To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies,” Douglass wrote. “It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when, to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried men's souls. They who did so were accounted in their day plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men.”
“…They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny.”
Douglass, an escaped slave living in a time where slavery was legal and accepted in many parts of the US, goes on to deliver a blistering critique of our country at the time, one where whites celebrated the 4th of July while blacks remained in chains. Douglass described nothing less than a kind of reverse-image American exceptionalism in 1852.
“Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”
The speech is a reminder of how horrible the sin of slavery was—and what an affront it was to the founding principles of this country. The speech also reminds us that racism and discrimination should be the enemy of every American. We fought a war over this issue; in many ways that war is not over. We all have a role to play to deciding whether the United States can live up to its ideals today, in this time.
Obama came from a different time. He, much more than Douglass, had reason to support American exceptionalism. Although his detractors then and now called him a socialist and a radical (he is neither), Obama was a product of middle America and was proud of his heritage; his speech from 2008 describes his grandfather, who fought with Patton’s army in WWII, and his grandmother, who worked in a factory as part of the war effort.
Obama explored the concept of what being an American patriot really means. “It is worth considering the meaning of patriotism because the question of who is – or is not – a patriot all too often poisons our political debates, in ways that divide us rather than bringing us together,” he noted. He added that as a politician, he would not question the patriotism of other Americans—and took pains to note that he was running against a great American patriot, John McCain.
Ah, for the days when the leaders of our country showed this kind of civility when running for office. It wasn’t that long ago. It needn’t be considered a lost art.
But Obama also delivered a message that seems timely now—that dissent can be patriotic. “Precisely because America isn’t perfect, precisely because our ideals constantly demand more from us, patriotism can never be defined as loyalty to any particular leader or government or policy,” he said. “As Mark Twain, that greatest of American satirists and proud son of Missouri, once wrote, ‘Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.’
“We may hope that our leaders and our government stand up for our ideals, and there are many times in our history when that’s occurred. But when our laws, our leaders or our government are out of alignment with our ideals, then the dissent of ordinary Americans may prove to be one of the truest expressions of patriotism.”
It's easy to talk about American exceptionalism—nothing is easier than saying, “We’re No.#1.” And few things are more mindless, or meaningless in the long run, that simply boasting about your own tribe.
If American exceptionalism means anything, it means that we have ideas that stand the test of time, that rise above the petty politics of the day. Surely the idea that all people are created equal is one of the greatest ideas any nation has embraced. And it is one of the hardest to put into practice.
Our current strife in the streets, during hard times of pandemic and economic challenges, is simply an attempt to make the United States live up to its ideals. Donald Trump doesn’t understand that. Some of his followers will never see it and will never even try to grasp the idea that dissent is patriotic.
But most Americans do see the patriotism of the BLM movement. Most do recognize that our nation has fallen short of its ideals, and that if we are truly patriots, we must join the struggle to make our nation great—not just in the words of a slogan, but in truth. We must work to make real the message of the BLM movement—that in America, black lives matter just as much as white lives do.
Douglass and Obama understood the challenge. Trump wants to retreat to an illusion that ignores the challenge, and thus deepens the injustice.
One year from now, on July 4, 2021, what will each of us say about how we individually rose to this challenge? Which vision did we embrace? What road did we choose?
