Well, just when you think the man can’t be any more offensive . . .
In a rambling set of remarks on Thursday, Donald Trump blamed Wednesday night’s tragic plane/helicopter crash on DEI. In the relentless MAGA campaign against any form of social justice there is nothing that cannot be blamed on DEI, CRT or transgender women and men.
This needless and cruel absurdity was accompanied by the release of another executive order, this one with a sweeping mandate to remove any wisps of DEI, CRT, gender fluidity, white privilege, structural racism or unconscious bias from America’s schools. In their stead, schools must inculcate patriotism and American exceptionalism and give the Christian God His rightful place in the classroom.
The Order also encouraged aggressive expansion of vouchers, so Americans can escape the recalcitrant public schools and send their children to a school that already does all of those nice “Christian-y” things.
I’ve frequently written about the conservative campaign to eliminate any and all vestiges of the civil rights era. By attacking the 1619 Project, dismantling affirmative action and making patently false claims about DEI and CRT, they express what appears to be pent-up frustration felt by a plurality of Americans. Whenever life seems unfair or difficult for white folks, the resentment toward what they see as racial preference soars. I’ve used the crude phrase “shit slides downhill” to characterize this phenomenon. It is a historic truth that those who feel dumped on by life are the most inclined to dump on others.
The “patriotism” demanded by the executive order exemplifies a very narrow and ultimately dangerous concept. Patriotism itself is problematic. Love of country can, I suppose, be rooted in appreciation for and understanding of the elegance of our system and the principles on which it was founded. But the “patriotism” implicit in the MAGA movement is not about those things. It is a demand for conformity and unquestioning allegiance, two notions that are diametrically opposed to the imperfect beauty of our democratic republic. Every step of progress over our 249 year history has come from rejecting conformity and demanding that our allegiance be earned.
While the analogy may seem forced, the relationship between citizen and state cannot be like like an arranged marriage. Love is a choice, not a command. It should be self-evident that no person can be instructed to love another. It is only through knowing, questioning, examining and challenging one another that real love can emerge and be sustained. And so it is, or should be, with love of country.
Like personal love, love of country has reciprocal obligations. A democracy is a sprawling community with expectations that we both participate in and benefit from the arrangements that we agree upon. It is part contract, in the sense of the Constitution and body of laws to which we stipulate, and part social contract, in the sense of the extra-legal understandings that guide our community values and social relationships. As with personal relationships, neighborhoods, towns and cities, national harmony is possible only to the extent that the arrangements provide reasonably for the needs and aspirations of the community’s members.
Our trajectory as a country reveals undulating progress, where imbalances that threatened the community were addressed by revolt, redress, recalibration and reconciliation. These things include the end of slavery, sliding back into Jim Crow, moving forward toward voting rights and civil rights, and now sliding back into an insincere complacency where conservatives are screaming “Enough already!”
That undulating progress continues only if the coming generations are encouraged to be loving critics, not compliant minions. Loving criticism demands honesty and transparency. The absolute worse thing for children is to pledge thoughtless devotion to a God, a flag or a nation. They should not required to say our country is “exceptional” when they can see that it is not. They should be encouraged to acknowledge their “white privilege” so that they might be willing to yield now and then. Believe me, kids of color have no problem identifying white privilege!
I find the broad rejection of DEI to be infuriating and bewildering. Diversity, equity and inclusion are prime among the aspirations that have animated nearly every bit of progress that might make the United States admirable. And this is what our government, with eager complicity among so-called progressives, is banishing.
If our kids must pledge something, how about this:
I pledge allegiance to the ongoing project to create a beloved community, founded on the principles of liberty, justice, diversity, equity and inclusion for all.