This July Fourth, that sacred day when we commemorate the hijacking of the American continent by a gang of white supremacists in a desperate bid to hold onto their slaves, I have a question for progressives: What do you want this country to be?
I understand the many frustrations with its flaws.
We all have those.
I understand anger at the myriad inequalities and injustices.
The work of progress is never even close to complete.
But is there anything that would actually make you love this country?
Do you understand why so many people—not only in America—admire it?
Ben Rhodes, a former Obama White House official, captures the progressive’s lament on glimpsing the American flag these last few years. “I’d look at the flag that once stirred such emotion in me and feel absolutely nothing,” he writes.
Perhaps in Rhodes’s case, like Michelle Obama’s , you’ve reached the point where you can be proud of your country only when your boss or someone in your immediate family is running it.
That doesn’t sound like America to me. It sounds more like a hereditary monarchy.
But what about all those others who seem to despise everything this country stands for even now that the people they like are in charge, like most of our academics, the staff who run HR departments for big American companies, the prime-time hosts on CNN?
I wonder in particular what sort of country they imagine would be better than this one.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/progressives-disdain-america-but-love-being-free-to-do-so-11624895362
