An American historian and former Republican would normally be the perfect audience for America’s 250th celebration, but both agreed that President Donald Trump has turned what should be a moment to bring the country together into his own ego fest.
The Bulwark’s publisher, Sarah Longwell, an ex-Republican and longtime pollster, commented that she is the patriotism suffers because Trump is trying to tie love for America to love of him. People are recoiling from the idea, but with it has come a slump in Americans’ love for America too.
“In a normal time that would be a great unifier,” Longwell said of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. “And [it] could help bring people together around some of our lofty national ideals, but it’s no secret that the Trump years have complicated a lot of people’s relationship with patriotism.”
She cited a recent Fox News poll showing that just 27 percent of Democrats consider themselves to be “proud” of the country.
A Gallup poll also recently found that a record low (58 percent) of U.S. adults say they are extremely or very proud to be an American, the pollster cited.
Longwell thinks that the second election of Trump did “real psychological damage to people who thought, “maybe even a little bit I knew … this could happen but I really hoped there was enough in there to keep this from happening again and the fact that Trump was elected a second time after trying to overturn an election I do think it’s it’s cratered people’s sense of who we are at least at the moment.”
Historian Heather Cox Richardson noted that it was odd for many people looking at the opening of the Barack Obama presidential library and asking how the country could elect the same people twice.
“My first reaction is the same country didn’t,” she explained, citing the changes in the electorate and the low number of people who voted for Obama twice, who then voted for Trump twice.
She said that voting has changed a lot since the 1980s, but that the rise of talk radio and the arrival of Fox News began to create a population “that is not operating in the real world.”
“So, when I think about this country, I think about that larger problem with the fact that we are no longer based in reality for a significant number of the people who live here, and that’s one of the things that you and I are combating,” Richardson said.
She went on to say that she believes many people who may have doubted the system are learning that they can do something to change it. It’s something that the far-right is attempting to change, to withdraw that agency. That “can-do spirit” has extended to changing government, and the right is so fearful that it’s working to change that.
At the same time, the move to diminish that “can-do spirit” breeds less resistance and backlash from those willing to fight back against Trumpism. They both urged Americans not to fall for it.
Longwell added that what Trump has done successfully is “pulling the worst instincts of people out. … He’s taking all the bad stuff and he’s shining a spotlight on that.”
“The best way for Americans to rediscover their love for America is to participate in making America the thing that you want it to be,” she added.
Heather Cox Richardson: America’s 250 Great (and Awful) Years by The Bulwark
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