The America I love

During his conversation with Marc Maron, Barack Obama took a step back from the specifics of what we're dealing with these days and gave an overview of the basic conflict that has been at the heart of our differences since the founding of this country. 

To illustrate the warring narratives, the former president pointed to the speech he gave at the 50th anniversary of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, saying that - of all the speeches he gave during his presidency - that is the one that is "closest to my heart."

As a point of privilege, I'll simply say that six years ago, I wrote that the Selma speech was the most important of Obama's presidency.  The context in which he gave it is important to recognize.

Early that year, Rudy Giuliani had set off a firestorm by suggesting that Obama didn’t love America. The accusation was made because of the president’s refusal to use the words “radical Islamic terrorist.” It became one of those stories that not only swirled around right wing media, but migrated into mainstream outlets as well. The patriotism of this country’s first African-American president was under assault.

Here are a few key quotes from the speech:

What greater expression of faith in the American experiment than this, what greater form of patriotism is there than the belief that America is not yet finished, that we are strong enough to be self-critical, that each successive generation can look upon our imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation to more closely align with our highest ideals?...

The American instinct that led these young men and women to pick up the torch and cross this bridge, that’s the same instinct that moved patriots to choose revolution over tyranny. It’s the same instinct that drew immigrants from across oceans and the Rio Grande; the same instinct that led women to reach for the ballot, workers to organize against an unjust status quo; the same instinct that led us to plant a flag at Iwo Jima and on the surface of the Moon.

It’s the idea held by generations of citizens who believed that America is a constant work in progress; who believed that loving this country requires more than singing its praises or avoiding uncomfortable truths. It requires the occasional disruption, the willingness to speak out for what is right, to shake up the status quo. That’s America.

Many things have changed since that march over 50 years ago, but one remains constant.

[W]hat 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.

As Obama told Maron, the clash on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965 was between people like young John Lewis, who held that view of patriotism, vs. those with billy clubs on horseback who represented conquest, hierarchy, domination, and the idea that if you weren't a white property-owning male, you didn't matter.  

The reason Obama brought up that speech is because, once again, those two narratives are clashing. MAGA isn't even being subtle about it - they're saying the quite parts out loud.

For example, back in July, J.D. Vance gave a speech at the right wing Claremont Institute where he "offered one of the clearest articulations to date of American citizenship and identity based on ancestry and bloodline rather than the principles outlined in our Declaration of Independence." A couple of months later, Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) gave a similar speech  titled "What is an American" at the National Conservatism Conference. After referencing his (white) ancestors who conquered the west, Scmitt said:  

[A]ll of them would be astonished to hear that they were only fighting for a “proposition.”... 

America, in all its glory, is their gift to us, handed down across the generations. It belongs to us. It’s our birthright, our heritage, our destiny.

If America is everything and everyone, then it is nothing and no one at all.

When pundits and politicians wring their hands about what divides us in this country...they should look no further than these two narratives about what it means to be American. 

Ahead of the No Kings demonstrations on October 18th, MAGA talking points about it have been consistently repeated. They're suggesting that the people who protest on Saturday "hate America." 

I tend to reject using the word "hate." But if those folks want to paint me as rejecting the America of (white) bloodlines, conquest, hierarchy and domination, I'm happy to own that charge. 

The America I love is the one Obama described. And yes, it includes everyone.

Selma shows us that America is not the project of any one person. Because the single-most powerful word in our democracy is the word “We.” “We The People.” “We Shall Overcome.” “Yes We Can.” That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone...

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.