A New Americanism
Why a Nation Needs a National Story
With Americans gathered to celebrate Independence Day this week, there is a natural tendency to reflect on what it means to be American, especially as the country’s cleavages—political, ideological, economic, and racial—feel particularly pronounced during a fraught election year.
The struggle to define what it means to be an American is centuries old, wrote the historian Jill Lepore in a 2019 essay . But “the work of providing a legible past and a plausible future—a nation—to the people who lived in the United States” is critically important. History has shown that charlatans, stooges, and tyrants remain “willing to prop up people’s sense of themselves and their destiny with a tissue of myths and prophecies, prejudices and hatreds.” But it is not too late to wonder, she wrote, what a new Americanism would look like; a composite nation “born in contradiction,” “founded on revolution,” and deeply committed to universal rights.
Independent Consultant at WA Marine Sales, LLC
4 个月I saw something similar happen when I was visiting Norway years back. The “refugees” who were coming in, had the belief they could lie and cheat the native Norwegians and its citizens. They then proceeded to hide behind religion while continuing to do that. The Norwegian culture that I was initially introduced to, is an extremely trusting society. This is where that clash is occurring and the same here, foreign interests have capitalized on the private sector in our regions, and they are trying to push their culture on some very different people.
Managing Director at The Stuyvesant Square Consultancy
4 个月The author espouses American exceptionalism in the values we share while bemoaning the admittedly arrogant nationalist swagger that conveys it to generations and newcomers. I'm sure she would prefer advocating for the internationalist "rules based order" that draws America into foreign wars more than ensuring national control of America's borders, tightly regulated immigration and assimilation. I'll bet she prefers soccer to baseball, too. Quite a lengthy article. But let me summarize what she wrote: "Orange man bad".
Africa political and economic developments, freelance writing, copyediting and proofreading services, photography.
4 个月Every time American nationalism resurfaces goatherds in oil rich countries die in vast numbers , and there’s no money for health care, decent housing or education.
Chartered Accountant
4 个月It’s a new form of American Exceptionalisam
Owner, PA Europe, PA Asia Ltd, PT PA CSR Indonesia, PAN Gulf Solutions Ltd
4 个月IT IS DEMOCRACY - NOT CHINA, RUSSIA OR THE US - THAT GIVES MIDDLE EAST PEACE AND ACTUALLY PEACE IN UKRAINE A CHANCE. While the EU and core EU Member States swing rightward, Iran and the UK use nightmarish consequences of such earlier swings to make a U-turn to moderation. Masoud Pezeshkian favours a return to international diplomacy to break Iran’s isolation and end crippling sanctions and the cause of those. His informal running mate is Javad Zarif, the former minister of Foreign Affairs that negotiated the 2015 US-EU-Iranian nuclear package deal that was abolished by former US President Trump. The consequential sanctions on Iran forced Iran’s policy to earn money with weapons sales including to Russia and opening up to China which actually discriminates Muslims. President Biden MUST seize this moment to pull the rug from under Hamas instead of allowing Israel to continue what most of the world understands as genocide on Palestinians. The REAL negotiations are not in Qatar but in Teheran. In the darkest hour of Middle East genocide it is democracy in Iran - not China, Russia or the US - that has given peace a chance. More power to the brave and never-give-up Iranian women that caused this incredible moment of opportunity. Rio