My aunt started voting Democrat when the GOP nominated Trump for president. The MAGA brand of nativist patriotism which had arguably been present in the Republican Party for decades had become exaggerated, performative even, under Trump. It had become unpalatable for her.
“I roll my eyes when I see an American flag now,” she recently told me.
But is that what the American flag represents? Is patriotism just another word for building a wall to keep people out and dialing America back to the 1950s? Many in the increasingly high profile New Right would ultimately contend that it is.
Stephen Wolfe, political philosopher and author of the book The Case for Christian Nationalism, argues against the notion of the “so-called creedal nation concept, which is popular in the United States” in favor of a definition of nation as “the intimate connection of people and place”–what some might call “preferring one’s own kind” or, at an earlier time, “blood and soil nationalism.”
Wolfe is skeptical that values like freedom, self-reliance, and the American dream are sufficient to hold our country together–particularly as our population of immigrants increases. “As a matter of moral principle” he writes, “nations by means of civil law would deny the universal reception of foreigners.”
Wolfe’s vision of patriotism may appeal to the groups that compose the New Right, but it is not a vision that makes the hearts of “creedal” Americans beat faster. Progressives, centrists, libertarians, and even mainstream Republicans find this kind of patriotism to be disturbing and dangerous. Moreover, it even makes some of us begin to feel suspicious of patriotism in general.
However, it is not necessarily patriotism that must be abandoned. We must grasp the creedal vision that Wolfe dismisses if we are to create a nation that moves steadily toward its best ideals–a nation that is worthy of our patriotism. I admit that I am often cynical of patriotic demonstrations, deeming them as far too often manipulative or disingenuous. But the highest ideals of my country make me feel very patriotic when I reflect upon them. Stories, and in particular movies, can concentrate these ideals and remind us of what we have to protect from the blood and soil patriots. Here are two movies that do that for me.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is Frank Capra’s classic film about “a young patriot [who] recites Lincoln and Jefferson, turned loose in our nation’s capital.” After the death of his state’s junior senator, Jefferson Smith, leader of the Boy Rangers, is appointed by governor to finish his term. What he doesn’t know is that his state’s senior senator, Joseph Paine, has been bought by corrupt businessman James Taylor and has snuck a scheme for graft into a deficiency bill.
On his first day in Washington, Smith shakes off his handlers and takes a sightseeing trip to D.C.’s monuments. This montage contains one of the film’s most moving scenes–a visit to the Lincoln Memorial where a child reads aloud from the Gettysburg Address and an elderly black man (perhaps old enough to have been born a slave himself) removes his hat to approach the great statue. I’m a bit of a cynic about Lincoln due to his less well known unsavory acts as president, but even I feel a lump in my throat every time I watch this scene.
Smith is portrayed powerfully by Jimmy Stewart in perhaps his best performance. But he’s helped along by an equally powerful script. Monologues like this one powerfully present the creedal vision of America that Wolfe finds insufficient:
“You see, boys forget what their country means by just reading The Land of the Free in history books. Then they get to be men they forget even more. Liberty’s too precious a thing to be buried in books, Miss Saunders. Men should hold it up in front of them every single day of their lives and say: I’m free to think and to speak. My ancestors couldn’t, I can, and my children will. Boys ought to grow up remembering that.”
Despite his naivety about how Washington works, Smith eventually stumbles upon the scheme and tries to stop it in its tracks. Unfortunately, the powers that be are ready for him and frame him up to look like the real grafter. He temporarily gives up, fretting that D.C. politics is “a whole new world” compared to the creedal version of America he’d been taught. He goes to the Lincoln Memorial one more time, but now he’s ready to give up on the lofty “words and the monuments and the whole rotten show.” But then he’s persuaded to fight for the truth, and that means staging a filibuster before he can be expelled from office. The colleagues that had previously turned on him now listen intently as he whispers, his vocal cords fried:
“Get up there with that lady that’s up on top of this Capitol dome, that lady that stands for liberty. Take a look at this country through her eyes if you really want to see something. And you won’t just see scenery; you’ll see the whole parade of what man’s carved out for himself, after centuries of fighting. Fighting for something better than just jungle law, fighting so’s he can stand on his own two feet, free and decent, like he was created, no matter what his race, color, or creed. That’s what you’d see. There’s no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties.”
Frank Capra is often criticized as being overly sentimental and even maudlin, but this is far from the truth. Capra presents the corrupt and bloodthirsty reality of American politics and how difficult it can be to face it down and win. But is that the real America, or is Smith’s vision of a government by the people and for the people the real America? What’s more real: the bright ideal or the dark shadow? Mr. Smith never fails to challenge me to think about America as it should be and could be–its creedal ideals–instead of how it too often is.
But Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is not the only film that makes me feel patriotic. The other is that great cinematic masterpiece about immigrants pursuing the American dream. I’m talking of course about Coneheads.
Coneheads
This 1993 comedy film is an adaptation of the famous SNL sketch that, at the time of this writing, sits at 37% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, it warrants a reappraisal. Its protagonists, Beldar and Prymatt, come to earth as would-be conquerors from their home planet of Remulak, but are then won over by the American dream.
As immigrants with no earth currency, they start at the bottom. Beldar gets a job as a repairman, which allows him and his wife to live in a trailer. His boss praises his work ethic as higher than his other workers, and apparently that work ethic pays off–Beldar and Prymatt are soon able to move into a basement apartment. From there, Beldar puts in triple shifts as a cab driver to afford to “settle in a safer neighborhood. One with better schools and a stronger local economic matrix which will not tax us to death.”
While they never cease being odd (and not just because the tops of their skulls are long and come to a point), they become more and more at home in America. Cue the montage of home movies of the Coneheads doing normal American activities like exchanging Christmas presents, going to the beach, and attending their daughter’s ballet recital–though with the peculiar spin that immigrants often put on approaching new customs.
Over time, they become even more assimilated. Beldar eventually takes up golf. In one scene he takes his daughter Connie (yes, Connie Conehead) and her friends shopping. She meets a young mechanic and begins that most American of rituals–dating. Like most American women in the 1990s, Beldar’s wife Prymatt becomes addicted to women’s magazines.
Bryan Caplan and Zach Weinersmith’s nonfiction graphic novel Open Borders has a joke about immigrant assimilation that is appropriate here. They point out that you never hear first generation immigrants saying, “my son Jayesh speaks Hindi perfectly–and all my grandkids are fluent, too! They couldn’t care less about American culture. It’s all India, India, India for them,” but, “my son Jayesh won’t even speak our language. Whatever I say, he responds in English. My grandkids don’t know a word of Hindi! Our culture means nothing to them. Bollywood, cricket, Gandhi–it’s all the same as far as they’re concerned!” As much as Beldar and Prymatt are able to assimilate to the American dream, Connie is born to it. Her words pierce the hearts of her parents: “I don’t care about Remulak.”
But just because you can’t take the Remulak out of the Coneheads, that doesn’t mean they remain outsiders. In the end, Beldar and Prymatt abandon their mission of conquering the earth, having been themselves conquered by the American dream.
Prymatt remarks, “life on earth is good,” to which Beldar can only respond, “I agree. Stability and contentment have been achieved.”
Concluding thoughts
Blood and soil can make a movement, and as history shows us, these movements are often responsible for spilling more blood and stealing more soil than they preserve. But to make a really great country, you need people who treat each other like neighbors and a creed to keep them moving in the same direction.
When I see an American flag, I have to admit that I do still see the things my aunt does; like hypocrisy, manipulation, and corruption. But I can also see the very real values of freedom, decency, and equality that motivated the fictional Jefferson Smith. I can, unfortunately, see our history of xenophobia, nativism, and racism. But I also see the millions of immigrants who have come here and found the opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their kids. And that’s worth feeling patriotic about.