How to Keep Loving America

Even when it hurts.

(Photo illustration by The Bulwark / Photos:" Getty, Shutterstock)

THE APPROACH OF JULY FOURTH is making my heart hurt. Love of this country is deep-dyed in my soul, but pondering how or even whether to celebrate the semiquincentennial provokes a riot of mixed feelings.

The right—and not just the MAGA right—responds to any queasiness about this particular anniversary with knee-jerk vituperation. Matthew Hennessy, writing in the Wall Street Journal, offered a typical example of this Pavlovian response this week when he accused Robert De Niro of “hating America.” What had the actor done to deserve this verdict? Well, he attempted to provide “counter-programming” to what Hennessy described as the “star-spangled UFC spectacle” on the White House lawn.

So if De Niro and others found the transformation of the stately White House into a Vegas gladiatorial contest demeaning to our country, they are failing a test. I guess if you “star spangle” something, no matter how vulgar, and people fail to celebrate it, then they hate America? That is the Trumpian way. He routinely accuses his critics, judges who rule against him, and even members of the Supreme Court of hating or attempting to destroy America. It’s the patriotism of fools—slap Trump’s face on whatever you want and label anyone who objects an America hater.

De Niro explained why love of country is sticking in some of our throats right now, and Hennessy quoted a couple passages that clearly triggered him:

Because our country isn’t so lovable right now. I hate to say it, but loving our country is starting to sound like an abused spouse saying they love their abuser. I can’t love a country that starts stupid and inhumane wars, killing thousands of innocents and indirectly causing the deaths and suffering of millions more. I can’t love a country that takes healthcare away from millions of people and uses that money to enrich their pals in the Trump-Epstein class. I can’t love a country that sends out masked militias to shoot citizens in the streets, torture our neighbors, and separate families.

He continued:

I can’t love a country that’s led by a racist, misogynist, xenophobic tyrant. And let me just say it: I can’t love a country that’s led by Donald Trump and his sycophant Congress. For most of my life of course I did love my country. The United States of America welcomed my immigrant ancestors. It gave me, my family, and my fellow citizens such rich opportunities and extraordinary freedoms. I want to love my country again. I want my country back.

I have no idea where De Niro stands on many political issues. I may disagree with him on some policy matters. But his despair about the current iteration of America resonates with me and with millions of other Americans. For Hennessy to decry De Niro’s protest while implicitly celebrating the degrading spectacle the president put on for his birthday on the White House lawn is upside down. It is our very reverence for the country that makes us recoil from the tawdry circus Trump hosted.

I’ll see De Niro’s plaint and raise him. It’s difficult to love America when we reelected a man who threatens our neighbors, fawns over dictators, attempts to overturn an election, terrorizes and tortures immigrants, trashes the Constitution, says the greatest threat to our country is the “enemy within,” enjoys the murder of critics like Robert Reiner, pillages the treasury to enrich himself and his family, sics prosecutors on his critics while pardoning his allies, attempts to use government power to co-opt or silence the press, defunds lifesaving foreign aid while offering asylum only to white South Africans, commits multiple murders in the Caribbean, cannot complete an English sentence, and starts wars he cannot finish because he’s a vainglorious idiot too enraptured by his own myths to take advice.

It is painful to look at our flag with mixed feelings, but how can we not when the MAGA crowd has so conspicuously appropriated it as their symbol? Ironic, isn’t it, that the very people who used poles with American flags attached as spears against policemen at the Capitol on January 6th have the gall to drape themselves in it today? But they have and we all know it. Displaying the flag now almost seems to require an explanation. Maybe a flag underneath saying “Pro-America, anti-MAGA.” I loved the idea I heard recently for a t-shirt featuring the face of Pope Leo. The tagline would be “American. We Don’t All Suck.”

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HERE’S WHERE I DEPART from De Niro though. We may despise what the Republican party has done to America in the past decade and even mourn for what’s been lost, but we can still love the country. It’s like a dysfunctional relative. You may hate what they do, but you still love them and you’ll never stop trying to help.

Even in the midst of this debacle, there remains much to love about America. Its gift to the world of the ideas in the Declaration of Independence is first on the ledger. Its physical beauty goes without saying. Consider also that right now, roughly 62 percent of American adults disapprove of Trump. Sixty-two percent of 270 million American adults is more than 167 million people—a population big enough that, if it were its own country, it would be the ninth biggest in the world. Fifty-nine percent of American adults believe he is a “potentially dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.” That’s reality sinking in.

Despite the backsliding, we remain the nation with the greatest scope for free expression in the world. No other country protects free speech, religious freedom, or free association as vigorously as the United States. That is under threat, but we are seeing that people now know it. A majority in a recent PRRI survey agreed with the statement, “Today we are in real danger of losing important democratic rights and freedoms we have had in this country.” Whether they will act on that fear remains to be seen.

We remain one of the most charitable nations on Earth (Indonesia is number one, in case you were wondering).

Despite what the Trump administration has done, Americans overwhelmingly welcome and accept people of all backgrounds as full and equal citizens—and not because “elites” forced this upon us. We continue to prefer pluralism to sectarianism. A recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 77 percent of Americans want this to be a nation made up of people from all over the globe, while a mere 20 percent long for a nation (that never was) made up of only those of Western European origin. We don’t want religious homogeneity either; 64 percent prefer that America be a nation of people belonging to a variety of religious faiths, while only 34 percent want a nation primarily of Christians.

Our federal system serves as a bulwark against centralized power, and, very critically in our time, makes it difficult to steal elections. Besides, as the world’s oldest continually functioning democracy, elections are deeply baked into our DNA. It’s worth remembering what happened to Viktor Orbán. When the people can vote—even if their leader has attempted to thwart democracy in hundreds of ways—the people still rule.

America has demonstrated a capacity for self correction in the past. Suffrage was gradually expanded from white property owners to all white men and then to black men and finally women. Slavery was obliterated by the Civil War. The greed and peculation of the Gilded Age gave way to the progressive era. McCarthy’s reckless bullying was rebuked by Congress. Nixon’s crimes were followed by government reforms.

It’s possible that we have crested as a nation and are now in permanent decline. As Shakespeare said,

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood
leads on to fortune
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

Perhaps we’re past it. But when you consider our strengths and our virtues, giving up on loving this country and working to steer it towards a better future would be a tragic dereliction.