I would just turn the dial down a bit on the assumed value of growth and penalize conservatives for their extreme views on it accordingly. I don’t think one can simply claim to support egalitarianism and also be mostly optimistic about growth. I think the point is that they don’t really go together in an uncomplicated fashion.
In some ways - the benefits of growth are what poor people are promised, but it never seems to come to fruition. Anyone interested in egalitarianism ought to be damn sure indifferent about growth, or at least view it in a skeptical way.
In the end, the details and impact of policy change is what matters, and that’s why big picture assessments of “the value of growth” are not very helpful.
Apparently, the net sum of my policy & personal views, when shoe-horned into a false binary and weighted for importance, put me in the Conservative column. Fine. Label me whatever you want.
I read Matt's work because I want to understand everyone, and he articulate "the Left" coherently when many tastemakers on the Left are incoherent, illogical, and worse unfair. (Obviously, this exists on the right as well. But I've found, EPSECIALLY since the revolution occurred, and I can't believe I'm saying/typing this, engagement and good faith conversation has become a conservative trait. I mean, Free Speech is now partisan, for Lord's sake. You can't question anything Trans without being a hate-monger worthy of disenfranchisement and disembowelment, yet a Supreme Court justice has disqualified herself from knowing if she's a woman, yet toddlers can choose/know their gender?!? What are we doing?!?) This last piece showed Matt can fairly see all sides. Thank you. As is said on The Left, people want to be heard.
Now can we depoliticize nuance and get back to adapting and solving the world's problems with an eye on the future and wisdom from the past? (And maybe, just maybe, some on the Left are intentionally disagreeable to coherence and harmony because they are paid to make this country divided and worse for all PEOPLE on the Left, Center, Right, whatever whoever wherever.)
Conservatives view culture as a complex phenomenon built up over centuries and millennia that we don’t truly understand, and believe that attempts to tinker with it will inevitably have countless unintended bad consequences. It’s interesting to me that this is very much the progressive attitude toward nature and the environment. I don’t know of any good explanation for this role reversal other than partisan accident.
This is a good column. I like it better than the one about the left. That said, it is important to point out that one of the things the right gets wrong is that they often do not really believe these things so much as use them as retorts in political battles.
'I believe in free markets and economic growth, and I support Trump!'
I imagine Matt doesn't enjoy hearing this, but this article has gotten more likes than his "what the left gets right" article, which I think solidifies the anecdotal suggestions that his audience is more right-leaning than left-leaning. I wonder what college progressive MY would have to say about future Substack writer MY?
It feels a bit of a straw man to compare “conservative” positions from say the John McCain era to “progressive “ ones from the ultra online left. Democrats just voted for military aid to Israel and Ukraine when far right Republicans refused. Elected Democrats hug the flag just as much as Republicans. Everyone disavows communism, even Bernie and the squad! The left wing in the US is to the right of the center right parties in Europe on issues of state control and free markets.
I think it’s some BS / brilliant marketing that conservatives ended up the party of “family” when they don’t support any family friendly policies, and it’s unfair to pretend that the left doesn’t care about family.
And agreeing to the peaceful transition of power would seem to me to be a fundamental founding principle, the ultimate in what makes America special, and one the current right is openly willing to abandon in November.
I think you give conservatives too much credit here. Most “conservatives” are concerned with low taxes and a social structure that gives the wealthy authority over everyone else. Recent events have shown they will shred the constitution to get what they want. I don’t believe the Koch brothers are patriotic or interested in preserving any institutions that are not in their interest.
"One important virtue of conservative politics, though, is that official doctrine on the right is that markets are good"
Still? And even historically, the doctrine tended to be rolled out only when the issue is something anti-market that transfers income downward. Minimum wages? Bad! Farm price supports/ethanol subsidies? Crickets!
On appreciating the brutality of human history and dark, zero sum view of human nature. I've had a couple of exchanges lately where I've had to point out to people, who have sometimes been incredulous and had difficulty registering it, that, in their position relative to their own society, country and majority demographic, MAGA-like reactionary populist behavior is far, far, far more the global human norm than that of white, non-Mideast affiliated pro-Palestinian Columbia protestors, or woke western white people in general. It's the latter who are the odd ducks in the human pond, more than the former.
"He sees civic patriotism founded in the abstract values of the Declaration of Independence as phony, and argues that real patriotism is grounded in the specifics of your country rather than in these abstract values. My current take on this is that I’m an American, goddamnit, and I have no idea whether Scottish people like MacIntyre should be patriots. But I am patriotic about my country, and the abstract values of the Declaration of Independent are part of our particularist heritage, so anyone who tells me that doesn’t count can fuck off."
I agree completely.
And if the DoI values are not a part of your American patriotism, well, you could just be super forgetful, like you have have brain like a sieve and it's been that way since elementary school, or if you deliberately base it on some blood and soil alternative, you're a freaking eccentric weirdo.
For an example of the latter, see Michael Lind's "The Next American Nation" which, although it is an interesting read and has some useful concepts, has some pedantic sections about the nature of patriotism and nationalism, dismissive of the idea of a "proposition nation" based on ideals and insistent on blood, soil, heritage, and kultur elements, that he goes overboard with, by, for example, saying as a nation we should valorize and celebrate the political events and wars that Anglo-Saxonized our continent, specifically the French and Indian War, and the Mexican War, over the wars that represented independence, republicanism, and a new birth of freedom for a more broadly defined citizenry, the American Revolution and Civil War.
This takes the blood and soil concept ad absurdum and is a advertisement that one should heed this warning: "if a tradition ain't broke, don't fix it" and an example of an overly synthetic intellectual creation trying to mimic a concept of what a more organic nation should be. And it seems ill-fitting with some of his forward looking ideas for a more racially inclusive future America, because increasing inclusivity over time is one of the themes, with one of his expectations being that cross-racial harmony and cooperation today is valuable precisely because, though we may not have [reccent] common ancestors, we will likely have common hybrid descendants, inheriting the same country.
In what universe are conservatives more patriotic than progressives? Honoring a flag has no meaning if the principles it represents are ignored. Pointing out the darkness of the past (and the present) is not unpatriotic; it is profoundly patriotic in recognition of what could be, and of where we fall short of the universal principles of the Declaration. I always go back to one of my favorite quotes, from Thomas Dewey: “Not perfection as the final goal, but rather the ever-enduring process of perfecting, maturing, refining is the aim of living.” America is not and has never been perfect, but we constantly try to be better, and historically we’ve made progress. That’s the reason to be proud of our country: we keep trying. That’s not a conservative or progressive position : that’s what we do, for better or for worse.
Great post, thanks Matt. I think you understate one of your strongest points.
" It’s naive to view our sociocultural antecedents here in the United States as flawless, shining heroes, but it’s also naive to think the violence and brutality of American history is what’s unique about it, rather than the fact that we’ve settled into a prosperous and liberal status quo."
I would go quite a bit further. The West has really been at the forefront of enlightened change for so many centuries. Where did Women first get to vote? Where was slavery first abolished? Where was freedom of speech first established? The list goes on and on.
The left is stuck on this idea that Western Civ (and "capitalism") is the root of all evil. It's what enables these crazy "LGBTQIA+ for Palestine" crazies. They get all 1619 project and act like the slave trade evidences some kind of pathological moral rot. Slavery was a normal practice in Africa and everywhere else at the time. The fact that the West had the tech to move people across oceans doesn't make them worse people-- there is zero reason to think non-Western societies wouldn't have done the same if they had the tech. Same story with the Native Americans. So much love for victims.
All this helps to understand the fetishization of the Palestinians. The ultimate victims. It hardly dawns on these people that, since 10/7, Israel has been attacked from Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen. Not a peep about that. So Israel should get whats coming to them, eye for an eye, but the Palestinians, oh yeah, ultimate victims, can't expect them to take responsibility for themselves ever. Just Israel Israel Israel. Never mind that Hamas has literal US citizens as hostages right now. Never mind that Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, and Yemen are all recipients of US money. We are giving money to Lebanon while Hezbollah has displaced 100,000 Israelis from their homes due to missile attacks. Not a peep.
I confess that I don't connect with a patriotism of flag pins and pledges of Allegiance but I do have a love of my country -- both its actual physical geography, its ideals, and my fellow citizens. I think that the Left should celebrate that love of country but I think we are right to demand that that love been strong and deep enough to admit flaws. I have never teared up at Star Spangled Banner butI tear up a little each time I listen to Obama's amazing speech at the 50th anniversary of the Selma March. It includes a definition of patriotism that is deep and real and with which long to identify with.
My favor part would be:
"We have endured war and we’ve fashioned peace. We’ve seen technological wonders that touch every aspect of our lives. We take for granted conveniences that our parents could have scarcely imagined. But what has not changed is the imperative of citizenship; that willingness of a 26-year-old deacon, or a Unitarian minister, or a young mother of five to decide they loved this country so much that they’d risk everything to realize its promise.
That’s what it means to love America. That’s what it means to believe in America. That’s what it means when we say America is exceptional.
For we were born of change. We broke the old aristocracies, declaring ourselves entitled not by bloodline, but endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. We secure our rights and responsibilities through a system of self-government, of and by and for the people. That’s why we argue and fight with so much passion and conviction -- because we know our efforts matter. We know America is what we make of it.
Look at our history. We are Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea, pioneers who braved the unfamiliar, followed by a stampede of farmers and miners, and entrepreneurs and hucksters. That’s our spirit. That’s who we are.
We are Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou Hamer, women who could do as much as any man and then some. And we’re Susan B. Anthony, who shook the system until the law reflected that truth. That is our character.
We’re the immigrants who stowed away on ships to reach these shores, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free –- Holocaust survivors, Soviet defectors, the Lost Boys of Sudan. We’re the hopeful strivers who cross the Rio Grande because we want our kids to know a better life. That’s how we came to be.
We’re the slaves who built the White House and the economy of the South. We’re the ranch hands and cowboys who opened up the West, and countless laborers who laid rail, and raised skyscrapers, and organized for workers’ rights.
We’re the fresh-faced GIs who fought to liberate a continent. And we’re the Tuskeegee Airmen, and the Navajo code-talkers, and the Japanese Americans who fought for this country even as their own liberty had been denied.
We’re the firefighters who rushed into those buildings on 9/11, the volunteers who signed up to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’re the gay Americans whose blood ran in the streets of San Francisco and New York, just as blood ran down this bridge.
We are storytellers, writers, poets, artists who abhor unfairness, and despise hypocrisy, and give voice to the voiceless, and tell truths that need to be told.
We’re the inventors of gospel and jazz and blues, bluegrass and country, and hip-hop and rock and roll, and our very own sound with all the sweet sorrow and reckless joy of freedom.
We are Jackie Robinson, enduring scorn and spiked cleats and pitches coming straight to his head, and stealing home in the World Series anyway.
We are the people Langston Hughes wrote of who “build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how.” We are the people Emerson wrote of, “who for truth and honor’s sake stand fast and suffer long;” who are “never tired, so long as we can see far enough.”
That’s what America is. Not stock photos or airbrushed history, or feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others. We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past. We don’t fear the future; we grab for it. America is not some fragile thing. We are large, in the words of Whitman, containing multitudes. We are boisterous and diverse and full of energy, perpetually young in spirit. That’s why someone like John Lewis at the ripe old age of 25 could lead a mighty march."
When people describe American History as only shameful they are not only be ahistoric. They are suggesting that only the history of white slave holders count as our history because only their descendents and other white people count as real Americans. American history when it includes all Americans is too rich and varied to be good or bad. It is the history of a struggle about what America means and what its values require and the answers while hardly ideal are nevertheless hopeful and inspiring.
I went to Selma as part of a trip to Alabama that my then eight year old daughter insisted we take because all the best Americans come for Alabama. (She included John Lewis, Rosa Parks, and Helen Keller on her list of GOATs but even gave Doug Jones his due for his fight to bring justice to the victims of Birmingham Church Bombings.) That bridge, after visiting the museums and other sites, felt as sacred as any church I have even stepped through the doors of and it was the most patriotic that I have ever felt.
I think it has been one of the more impactful speeches on how I see myself as an American that I have heard delivered during my lifetime. I think about it alot when I hear debates about how we teach US history. There is this odd assumption on both sides that US History should be primarily guilt inducing if taught honestly and inspirational if whitewashed. But that assumption is based in large part on the idea that the history of the oppressive forces of America is the only history of America because only the oppressors get to count as Americans. Why should the average American today position themselves as a slaveholder when deciding how to feel about slavery? American history is incredibly inspirational if we assume that Fredrick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Park, and Martin Luther King are the protagonists of the story and its heros and not its pitiable victims. To do that requires us to have a vision of a "we" and "us" that isn't primarily or exclusively white but that ought to be the ultimate goal anyway.
I would just turn the dial down a bit on the assumed value of growth and penalize conservatives for their extreme views on it accordingly. I don’t think one can simply claim to support egalitarianism and also be mostly optimistic about growth. I think the point is that they don’t really go together in an uncomplicated fashion.
In some ways - the benefits of growth are what poor people are promised, but it never seems to come to fruition. Anyone interested in egalitarianism ought to be damn sure indifferent about growth, or at least view it in a skeptical way.
In the end, the details and impact of policy change is what matters, and that’s why big picture assessments of “the value of growth” are not very helpful.
This is why I think the notion right wingers are more patriotic is bullshit.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/us/justice-alito-upside-down-flag.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
Apparently, the net sum of my policy & personal views, when shoe-horned into a false binary and weighted for importance, put me in the Conservative column. Fine. Label me whatever you want.
I read Matt's work because I want to understand everyone, and he articulate "the Left" coherently when many tastemakers on the Left are incoherent, illogical, and worse unfair. (Obviously, this exists on the right as well. But I've found, EPSECIALLY since the revolution occurred, and I can't believe I'm saying/typing this, engagement and good faith conversation has become a conservative trait. I mean, Free Speech is now partisan, for Lord's sake. You can't question anything Trans without being a hate-monger worthy of disenfranchisement and disembowelment, yet a Supreme Court justice has disqualified herself from knowing if she's a woman, yet toddlers can choose/know their gender?!? What are we doing?!?) This last piece showed Matt can fairly see all sides. Thank you. As is said on The Left, people want to be heard.
Now can we depoliticize nuance and get back to adapting and solving the world's problems with an eye on the future and wisdom from the past? (And maybe, just maybe, some on the Left are intentionally disagreeable to coherence and harmony because they are paid to make this country divided and worse for all PEOPLE on the Left, Center, Right, whatever whoever wherever.)
Conservatives view culture as a complex phenomenon built up over centuries and millennia that we don’t truly understand, and believe that attempts to tinker with it will inevitably have countless unintended bad consequences. It’s interesting to me that this is very much the progressive attitude toward nature and the environment. I don’t know of any good explanation for this role reversal other than partisan accident.
This is a good column. I like it better than the one about the left. That said, it is important to point out that one of the things the right gets wrong is that they often do not really believe these things so much as use them as retorts in political battles.
'I believe in free markets and economic growth, and I support Trump!'
Great post.
I imagine Matt doesn't enjoy hearing this, but this article has gotten more likes than his "what the left gets right" article, which I think solidifies the anecdotal suggestions that his audience is more right-leaning than left-leaning. I wonder what college progressive MY would have to say about future Substack writer MY?
Thanks for this. I find your thinking and writing solidly encouraging and motivating.
It feels a bit of a straw man to compare “conservative” positions from say the John McCain era to “progressive “ ones from the ultra online left. Democrats just voted for military aid to Israel and Ukraine when far right Republicans refused. Elected Democrats hug the flag just as much as Republicans. Everyone disavows communism, even Bernie and the squad! The left wing in the US is to the right of the center right parties in Europe on issues of state control and free markets.
I think it’s some BS / brilliant marketing that conservatives ended up the party of “family” when they don’t support any family friendly policies, and it’s unfair to pretend that the left doesn’t care about family.
And agreeing to the peaceful transition of power would seem to me to be a fundamental founding principle, the ultimate in what makes America special, and one the current right is openly willing to abandon in November.
I think you give conservatives too much credit here. Most “conservatives” are concerned with low taxes and a social structure that gives the wealthy authority over everyone else. Recent events have shown they will shred the constitution to get what they want. I don’t believe the Koch brothers are patriotic or interested in preserving any institutions that are not in their interest.
I do agree with your criticism of the left.
"One important virtue of conservative politics, though, is that official doctrine on the right is that markets are good"
Still? And even historically, the doctrine tended to be rolled out only when the issue is something anti-market that transfers income downward. Minimum wages? Bad! Farm price supports/ethanol subsidies? Crickets!
"The related thing that conservatives get right is a sense that good things are vulnerable and it’s worth worrying about wrecking everything."
If they, "Conservatives," thought that, I wish they would act that way.
Basically Matt's take here is about 1950's style conservatism. Today's "conservatives" are just Right wing radicals.
On appreciating the brutality of human history and dark, zero sum view of human nature. I've had a couple of exchanges lately where I've had to point out to people, who have sometimes been incredulous and had difficulty registering it, that, in their position relative to their own society, country and majority demographic, MAGA-like reactionary populist behavior is far, far, far more the global human norm than that of white, non-Mideast affiliated pro-Palestinian Columbia protestors, or woke western white people in general. It's the latter who are the odd ducks in the human pond, more than the former.
"He sees civic patriotism founded in the abstract values of the Declaration of Independence as phony, and argues that real patriotism is grounded in the specifics of your country rather than in these abstract values. My current take on this is that I’m an American, goddamnit, and I have no idea whether Scottish people like MacIntyre should be patriots. But I am patriotic about my country, and the abstract values of the Declaration of Independent are part of our particularist heritage, so anyone who tells me that doesn’t count can fuck off."
I agree completely.
And if the DoI values are not a part of your American patriotism, well, you could just be super forgetful, like you have have brain like a sieve and it's been that way since elementary school, or if you deliberately base it on some blood and soil alternative, you're a freaking eccentric weirdo.
For an example of the latter, see Michael Lind's "The Next American Nation" which, although it is an interesting read and has some useful concepts, has some pedantic sections about the nature of patriotism and nationalism, dismissive of the idea of a "proposition nation" based on ideals and insistent on blood, soil, heritage, and kultur elements, that he goes overboard with, by, for example, saying as a nation we should valorize and celebrate the political events and wars that Anglo-Saxonized our continent, specifically the French and Indian War, and the Mexican War, over the wars that represented independence, republicanism, and a new birth of freedom for a more broadly defined citizenry, the American Revolution and Civil War.
This takes the blood and soil concept ad absurdum and is a advertisement that one should heed this warning: "if a tradition ain't broke, don't fix it" and an example of an overly synthetic intellectual creation trying to mimic a concept of what a more organic nation should be. And it seems ill-fitting with some of his forward looking ideas for a more racially inclusive future America, because increasing inclusivity over time is one of the themes, with one of his expectations being that cross-racial harmony and cooperation today is valuable precisely because, though we may not have [reccent] common ancestors, we will likely have common hybrid descendants, inheriting the same country.
In what universe are conservatives more patriotic than progressives? Honoring a flag has no meaning if the principles it represents are ignored. Pointing out the darkness of the past (and the present) is not unpatriotic; it is profoundly patriotic in recognition of what could be, and of where we fall short of the universal principles of the Declaration. I always go back to one of my favorite quotes, from Thomas Dewey: “Not perfection as the final goal, but rather the ever-enduring process of perfecting, maturing, refining is the aim of living.” America is not and has never been perfect, but we constantly try to be better, and historically we’ve made progress. That’s the reason to be proud of our country: we keep trying. That’s not a conservative or progressive position : that’s what we do, for better or for worse.
Great post, thanks Matt. I think you understate one of your strongest points.
" It’s naive to view our sociocultural antecedents here in the United States as flawless, shining heroes, but it’s also naive to think the violence and brutality of American history is what’s unique about it, rather than the fact that we’ve settled into a prosperous and liberal status quo."
I would go quite a bit further. The West has really been at the forefront of enlightened change for so many centuries. Where did Women first get to vote? Where was slavery first abolished? Where was freedom of speech first established? The list goes on and on.
The left is stuck on this idea that Western Civ (and "capitalism") is the root of all evil. It's what enables these crazy "LGBTQIA+ for Palestine" crazies. They get all 1619 project and act like the slave trade evidences some kind of pathological moral rot. Slavery was a normal practice in Africa and everywhere else at the time. The fact that the West had the tech to move people across oceans doesn't make them worse people-- there is zero reason to think non-Western societies wouldn't have done the same if they had the tech. Same story with the Native Americans. So much love for victims.
All this helps to understand the fetishization of the Palestinians. The ultimate victims. It hardly dawns on these people that, since 10/7, Israel has been attacked from Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen. Not a peep about that. So Israel should get whats coming to them, eye for an eye, but the Palestinians, oh yeah, ultimate victims, can't expect them to take responsibility for themselves ever. Just Israel Israel Israel. Never mind that Hamas has literal US citizens as hostages right now. Never mind that Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, and Yemen are all recipients of US money. We are giving money to Lebanon while Hezbollah has displaced 100,000 Israelis from their homes due to missile attacks. Not a peep.
I confess that I don't connect with a patriotism of flag pins and pledges of Allegiance but I do have a love of my country -- both its actual physical geography, its ideals, and my fellow citizens. I think that the Left should celebrate that love of country but I think we are right to demand that that love been strong and deep enough to admit flaws. I have never teared up at Star Spangled Banner butI tear up a little each time I listen to Obama's amazing speech at the 50th anniversary of the Selma March. It includes a definition of patriotism that is deep and real and with which long to identify with.
My favor part would be:
"We have endured war and we’ve fashioned peace. We’ve seen technological wonders that touch every aspect of our lives. We take for granted conveniences that our parents could have scarcely imagined. But what has not changed is the imperative of citizenship; that willingness of a 26-year-old deacon, or a Unitarian minister, or a young mother of five to decide they loved this country so much that they’d risk everything to realize its promise.
That’s what it means to love America. That’s what it means to believe in America. That’s what it means when we say America is exceptional.
For we were born of change. We broke the old aristocracies, declaring ourselves entitled not by bloodline, but endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. We secure our rights and responsibilities through a system of self-government, of and by and for the people. That’s why we argue and fight with so much passion and conviction -- because we know our efforts matter. We know America is what we make of it.
Look at our history. We are Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea, pioneers who braved the unfamiliar, followed by a stampede of farmers and miners, and entrepreneurs and hucksters. That’s our spirit. That’s who we are.
We are Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou Hamer, women who could do as much as any man and then some. And we’re Susan B. Anthony, who shook the system until the law reflected that truth. That is our character.
We’re the immigrants who stowed away on ships to reach these shores, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free –- Holocaust survivors, Soviet defectors, the Lost Boys of Sudan. We’re the hopeful strivers who cross the Rio Grande because we want our kids to know a better life. That’s how we came to be.
We’re the slaves who built the White House and the economy of the South. We’re the ranch hands and cowboys who opened up the West, and countless laborers who laid rail, and raised skyscrapers, and organized for workers’ rights.
We’re the fresh-faced GIs who fought to liberate a continent. And we’re the Tuskeegee Airmen, and the Navajo code-talkers, and the Japanese Americans who fought for this country even as their own liberty had been denied.
We’re the firefighters who rushed into those buildings on 9/11, the volunteers who signed up to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’re the gay Americans whose blood ran in the streets of San Francisco and New York, just as blood ran down this bridge.
We are storytellers, writers, poets, artists who abhor unfairness, and despise hypocrisy, and give voice to the voiceless, and tell truths that need to be told.
We’re the inventors of gospel and jazz and blues, bluegrass and country, and hip-hop and rock and roll, and our very own sound with all the sweet sorrow and reckless joy of freedom.
We are Jackie Robinson, enduring scorn and spiked cleats and pitches coming straight to his head, and stealing home in the World Series anyway.
We are the people Langston Hughes wrote of who “build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how.” We are the people Emerson wrote of, “who for truth and honor’s sake stand fast and suffer long;” who are “never tired, so long as we can see far enough.”
That’s what America is. Not stock photos or airbrushed history, or feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others. We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past. We don’t fear the future; we grab for it. America is not some fragile thing. We are large, in the words of Whitman, containing multitudes. We are boisterous and diverse and full of energy, perpetually young in spirit. That’s why someone like John Lewis at the ripe old age of 25 could lead a mighty march."
When people describe American History as only shameful they are not only be ahistoric. They are suggesting that only the history of white slave holders count as our history because only their descendents and other white people count as real Americans. American history when it includes all Americans is too rich and varied to be good or bad. It is the history of a struggle about what America means and what its values require and the answers while hardly ideal are nevertheless hopeful and inspiring.
I went to Selma as part of a trip to Alabama that my then eight year old daughter insisted we take because all the best Americans come for Alabama. (She included John Lewis, Rosa Parks, and Helen Keller on her list of GOATs but even gave Doug Jones his due for his fight to bring justice to the victims of Birmingham Church Bombings.) That bridge, after visiting the museums and other sites, felt as sacred as any church I have even stepped through the doors of and it was the most patriotic that I have ever felt.
Wow. That speech is freaking brilliant! Thank you for sharing!
I think it has been one of the more impactful speeches on how I see myself as an American that I have heard delivered during my lifetime. I think about it alot when I hear debates about how we teach US history. There is this odd assumption on both sides that US History should be primarily guilt inducing if taught honestly and inspirational if whitewashed. But that assumption is based in large part on the idea that the history of the oppressive forces of America is the only history of America because only the oppressors get to count as Americans. Why should the average American today position themselves as a slaveholder when deciding how to feel about slavery? American history is incredibly inspirational if we assume that Fredrick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Park, and Martin Luther King are the protagonists of the story and its heros and not its pitiable victims. To do that requires us to have a vision of a "we" and "us" that isn't primarily or exclusively white but that ought to be the ultimate goal anyway.