During a concert in Europe, Bruce Springsteen issued a criticism of Trump and his administration that generated a typically childish response from our thin-skinned autocrat. Springsteen’s comments–unlike Trump’s– displayed a fundamental understanding of what it means to be an American–“the union of people around a common set of values.” That union, he said, is “now that’s all that stands between a democracy and authoritarianism. So at the end of the day, all we’ve got is each other.”
Springsteen recognized an essential element of American identity, an element that MAGA appears incapable of comprehending: America is, and has always been, about a set of ideals.
Back in 1997, I wrote that it is the mission of public education to identify and transmit the values Americans hold in common, the values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and reflected through our national history.
What is the “American Idea”?
Americans value liberty. We believe in our inalienable right to hold our own opinions, to think for ourselves, to assemble with our friends, to cast our votes, to pray or not, all free of government coercion.
We value equality before the law– not to be confused with the fuzzy notion that we are all somehow interchangeable, and not to be confused with the belief of some religions that all people are equally worthwhile. This is a more limited proposition – – that government should apply the same rules to all similarly-situated citizens. It was a radical notion in 1776. It is fundamental to the way we understand ourselves and our society today.
We value the marketplace of ideas, the supreme importance of our ability to communicate with each other, unfettered by government censorship.
We value government legitimacy and respect for the rule of law. So long as our representatives continue to derive their authority from the consent of those they govern, we recognize our individual obligations to respect and obey the law. If we protest a law we believe to be unjust, we recognize our obligation to accept the consequences of that disobedience. (Tell that to the Jan. 6th insurrectionists pardoned by Trump…)
Finally, real Americans value the “woke” civic virtues which are necessary to the realization of the foregoing values: honesty, courage, kindness, mutual respect and tolerance.
In a country where people read different books and magazines, patronize different websites and news sources, attend different churches, and even speak different languages – where the information and beliefs we all share are diminishing and our variety and diversity are growing –these are the core values that make us Americans. They are nowhere to be seen in MAGA or the Trump administration.
Recently, David Brooks underlined the difference between Americans who define patriotism as allegiance to those overarching values, and the “blood and soil” Trumpers.
Trump and Vance have to rebut the idea that America is the embodiment of universal ideals. If America is an idea, then Black and brown people from all over the world can become Americans by coming here and believing that idea. If America is an idea, then Americans have a responsibility to promote democracy. We can’t betray democratic Ukraine in order to kowtow to a dictator like Vladimir Putin. If America is an idea, we have to care about human dignity and human rights. You can’t have a president go to Saudi Arabia, as Trump did this month, and effectively tell them we don’t care how you treat your people. If you want to dismember journalists you don’t like, we’re not going to worry about it….
If America is built around a universalist ideal, then there is no room for the kind of white identity politics that Trump and Stephen Miller practice every day. There is no room for the othering, zero-sum, us/them thinking, which is the only kind of thinking Trump is capable of. There’s no room for Trump’s immigration policy, which is hostile to Latin Americans but hospitable to the Afrikaners whose ancestors invented apartheid. There’s no room for Tucker Carlson’s replacement theory. There’s no room for the kind of racialized obsessions harbored, for example, by the paleoconservative writer Paul Gottfried in an essay called “America Is Not an ‘Idea,’” in Chronicles magazine: “Segregation was also an unjust arrangement, and I don’t regret seeing that go either. But what has taken its place is infinitely more frightening: the systematic degradation of white Americans.”
Brooks is right to accuse this Trumpian cabal of moral degradation, of substituting an ugly tribalism for genuine patriotism.
Springsteen is also right: people unified around American ideals can defeat Trump’s efforts to debase America. We all need to turn out for No Kings Day.
“Finally, real Americans value the “woke” civic virtues which are necessary to the realization of the foregoing values: honesty, courage, kindness, mutual respect and tolerance.”
Yet racism, bigotry, antisemitism and homophobia have always been deep in the makeup of Americanism. Growing up in a Republican family it was only hearing the views of those who supported those issues that I didn’t understand; in the mid-1950s in high school I learned the true meaning and effects of those lack of human values. I made friends with the “colored kids” and one of the two known lesbians in Tech High School and became part of a separate and unnamed “race” of people and the victim of the hatred of those supported racism, bigotry, antisemitism and homophobia who now rule this nation. I was actually disowned and disinherited by my family when I married one of those “colored guys”. Once I was divorced they reinstated me; we just didn’t talk about those issues again. Have we who have always been against those issues now been classified by the name “woke”, separating us from the ruling minority who are moving America to a totally anti-DEI nation which has expanded to the global level?
“Brooks is right to accuse this Trumpian cabal of moral degradation, of substituting an ugly tribalism for genuine patriotism.”
What is the actual legal standing of Executive Orders? Trump is running this nation and removing us from our once leading position globally with his Executive Orders which are never seen by Congress to be legally instated. Something I read somewhere long ago came to mind; “Loneliness is not a longing for company, it is a longing for kind.” Where the hell are our kind of Americans when we need them to survive?
Today’s essay would be a wonderful introduction to a block of instruction in high school social studies/government/history classes. Too bad so many of those underpaid teachers are coaching volleyball or some other activity to earn a stipend so their children can go to college and have some dignity.
Springstein may be right in theory, but we all know reality is a much different beast. Our oligarchy has rallied around a despot to lead our country for this phase because they hoped to profit from Trump’s bullyism. Look how quickly they all abandoned their DEI initiatives, which is the very definition of the “American ideal.”
We developed DEI programs to train leaders on the concept of gathering diverse ideas and perspectives. Like our country, the oligarchy was facing a diversity of customers that was incredibly fluid. Madison Avenue couldn’t just target white customers anymore because our country is too diverse.
However, when Trump won the election and scrubbed the DEI programs, the oligarchy followed his lead. Target lost revenue as a result, and I’m sure many others did too. Look at what happened to Tesla!
Now, in a very public way, Musk is detaching from Trump. While it looks adversarial in the media, this is a strategic plan for Musk to regain his lost market share. I wonder how other oligarchs will respond when the “BBB Abomination” includes billions in profits for them. LOL
Once you see that the US has always been an oligarchy, that dropped a Theocratic Monarchy so they could rule over the US themselves, everything makes sense. Who funded the Rebels in the South? 😉
Musk has moved his pieces on the chessboard. If Trump ignores him, then we’ll know the whole divorce was staged since Dear Leader is incapable of taking the high road. His giant ego makes him very thin-skinned.
I read a transcript last night of a former colonel who said the global community is meeting to determine how best to handle “Patient Zero.” Their goal is to contain the pathogen (the USA) at this point so it doesn’t spread and infect the global community. He also said Hegseth is an embarrassment for threatening China since our military is not capable of taking on a superpower. I’m certainly glad that China understands that our drunken white supremacist in charge of the military has a teenager mentality.
Hello, from Florididia, where ignorance comes to thrive…where fluoridation comes to die, and the only good thinking is that which suits the gov’r.
“Woke” is being awake to the realities of the world, not the fantasies of the bozos.
There is no “systematic degradation of white Americans,” except in the fevered minds of the infantile bozos.
While I have never been impressed with Bruce’s music, my son once met him, by coincidence, in a coffee shop shop at the Jersey shore, and found him to be a nice guy, with no pretenses. Trump, Miller, and crew, on the other hand, are all about pretenses and posing.
I’m glad that Musk is against the Big Ugly Bill (BUB), but why? He really doesn’t care about Medicaid cuts. He thinks they didn’t cut enough. He hates the bill because of the Deficit, which is really bad for business. He really doesn’t like paying high interest rates when he’s funding a new project..
We’ve already seen the richest man on earth kill the poorest children on earth. Now we get to watch him kill the poorest children in America. Or wait, we don’t have to watch that! Orange Jesus (OJ) has given us a new distraction. He just handed us a travel ban (squirrel!!!). Watch the magic happen, now. OJ and the Senate will come together, sing a chorus of Cumbaya, and in spite of his statement that he won’t bypass the Parliamentarian, John Thune will ram the bill through, with the policy pieces intact.
The policy pieces are the worst part of BUB. No tax on silencers, Take away the power of the Federal judiciary to make nationwide rulings. There are other provisions that will make OJ’s battle against the rule of law easier.
God help us!
Trump, Miller and that crew feel so inadequate within that they have no response to the world but to strike out at it.
Growing up in a rural village, we studied civics in school and received the standard narrative of the Constitution as the foundation of our laws. It crept into my always-on but distracted head as trivial, just words, like the flag symbol. They struck me as trivial because I thought, big deal, everybody knows that.
However, I never stopped thinking about them over the course of eight decades. What’s evident to me at this end of life is that everything I assumed about living socially rests on the meaning of those words and that symbol, and there are other choices.
Everything about the “boss” and his gang of musicians is distinctly American, and they rose to prominence during a time when European and Asian musicians were in high demand.
So the man called the “boss” now represents my happy life here in Mid North America, and the DC boss represents the worst in humanity.
But I haven’t forgotten those lessons from my childhood, and now I have to fight to reclaim them. I need to categorize all the people with whom I have any relationship into those who share my perspective on life and those who do not.
That’s life, and I’m fortunate to have all that I do and accept the responsibility to defend it with the “Boss”.
The Republicans in Congress could have shown patriotism by voting in favor of 45’s impeachment several years ago, but they instead chose to protect their own jobs and political power. If they would had cared even a tiny bit about our country’s future their party’s leaders would have grown backbones and demanded that they all vote in favor of getting rid of 45.
JoAnn,
You make some extremely excellent points. I don’t know much about your life my dear, but from mulling your comments over, I can see some parallel experiences. Keep on demonstrating fruitage of the Spirit, because that’s the only way there will be true change.
“The fruitage of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-mastery; against such things there is no law.” (Galatians the 5: 22-24)
Paul wrote to the congregation in Ephesus: “The fruitage of the light consists of every sort of goodness and righteousness and truth.” (Ephesians 5:8, 9)
So are these the things that we see the upper echelon of society practicing today? Were these things self-evident anytime in the near or distant past? Emperor Constantine wanted these things for his empire of Rome, but he didn’t want to practice them himself. He figured it would give him power because of the loyalty his subjects would imbue.
During the formation of the American Constitution, who were those covered by that constitution? Who were those who were actually covered under the Bill of Rights? Who were those covered under the federal papers? Well it sure wasn’t women, it sure wasn’t slaves, And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t for the poorest among us, As Todd says, it was really just for the oligarchy, those who owned the land, those who owned the slaves, those who are not poor, those who are not possessions as enslaves and or women.
They continuously had to quell their conscience, throughout the formation of this country, there were constant edicts to make those in the upper reaches of power, less stressed by convincing themselves of the inhumanity of those they were overlords of. And down the line, African slaves were not human, Native Americans were not human, Chinese were not human, Japanese were not human, women were possessions.
Without a doubt there’s much more to it, but the only ones not bound by their own discriminatory and inhuman view of everyone unlike themselves, was themselves! Hence they were the only ones that had rights.
So how did this country have a uniform and all-encompassing Epiphany that they were wrong for the beginning but never really rewrote the rules of engagement concerning citizens of this country? And then in fourth it? Well it never did, there never was an epiphany. Does anyone really expect anything different than what we have today?
The founders claimed to be guided by Spirit, but obviously, when we read what the spirit shows, entails, they never had a clue!
I just read a Newsweek summary of recent polling showing an increase in support of Trump by women. Can anyone explain how that is possible against the current events always in the news?
Mitch D., I always enjoy your reports from the swamp. Somehow Florida has created a concentration of stupid. Rick Scott? Please. Do all those senior citizens vote for dummies just so they can feel important for a while?
“The upcoming “No Kings Day” is far from the first protest of its kind. Over the past decade, liberal protest culture has returned again and again to the same playbook. From the 2017 Women’s March to the “Bans Off Our Bodies” rallies after the leaked Dobbs memo, and even “Defend Democracy” vigils after the Jan. 6 riot, these demonstrations have mobilized outrage without confronting power. They prioritize tone, aesthetic unity, and moral alignment — often drawing massive crowds, but issuing few demands. The goal is to be seen, not to force concessions.
The spectacle is uplifting, frictionless — designed to reassure participants they are on the right side of history. It’s no wonder figures like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) — Democratic leaders who have repeatedly upheld corporate interests — feel comfortable showing up with a bullhorn.”
One dog’s bark…
It’s an American and democratic strength to use ones artform and words to speak out against the corruption and injustice that’s prevalent today.
It’s been hinted at that the federal land of Camp Atterbury is being readied for a detainee camp here in Ind. A lot of workers have been cleared out and Representative Carson is investigating. I’ve been told that Ind. doesn’t have the resources to represent the capacity of 7200 detainees legally.
Capitalism/bartering has always been our currency in this Republic with people with a lot of capital being able to influence more. Citizens United has opened the floodgates to bribe Congress and we’re realizing the devasting negative effect that is having on Democracy. Keeping the spotlight on the corruption is vital.
The un-American movement of Maga to dominate and usurp our power and rights with authoritarian means needs to be opposed at every stop.