What is Your Relationship to Patriotism?
On this July 4th, patriotism is a difficult subject for many. Maybe you, too. If so, I hear you. After all, we live in a nation that can feel chaotic, confusing, even confounding—regardless of who you voted for in the last election.
Not a day passes without people telling me they’re angry about the country’s past and present, despairing about its future. Others talk to me about an unwavering allegiance to this nation. Still, others find themselves shifting day to day depending upon particular events or news cycles.
These conflicting feelings about the country can make it difficult to engage with each other and move forward together. Indeed, “patriotism” is one of those topics we struggle to talk about with each other, if we dare to talk about it at all. Yet I believe we can productively harness the myriad feelings we have for America—the mix of positive, negative, and complex—toward reclaiming a “patriotism of devotion” that leads us forward rather than divides us.
Hear me out before you feel the urge to stake out a position.
Look, I’m tired of patriotism being trashed as if it’s a dirty word. But I’m equally concerned by those who blindly wield patriotism as a political weapon or wedge issue. Both options lead us to an unproductive impasse. Meanwhile, there are many folks—most I believe—who find themselves trying to navigate these choppy waters.
I believe it’s time to lean into the very definition of patriotism: “love of country.” Not blind allegiance. Nor total dismissal. Love means you are devoted to something so strongly that you stick with it and work to improve it, especially when you don’t like the direction it is headed. This is a patriotism I believe we are called to today. It is a kind of patriotism that can help lead us to building stronger communities and a better society together.
The Americans I’m meeting as I crisscross the country for our Campaign for the New Civic Path are tired of retreating. They don’t want to surrender to the loudest and most divisive voices. They know resistance alone cannot address our frayed civic culture and cannot replace articulating what we are for. Maybe you count yourself among these folks.
People are yearning for a real alternative in America. Something that can overcome our divisive politics. Something that is rooted in what actually engenders a new sense of possibility and hope. This is why I believe so deeply in this new civic path, which beckons us to embrace a patriotism of devotion. It’s why I wrote The New Civic Path: Restoring Our Belief in One Another and Our Nation, which has a whole chapter devoted to a new patriotism.
After nearly 40 years of leading the Institute, I’ve come to believe that the work we need to do today must start in our local communities. It must start by figuring out what we can agree on, amid our real differences, and then build from there. At moments of deep national tumult, this is how we’ve found a way forward. We can—we must—do it again.
Let’s go together.
