Essay on American Patriotism and Its Current State

How is a ‘real’ American defined? A recent study revealed that a large amount of the American population could not show the location of Iowa on a map of the United States, so how Americans define patriotism could be very equivocal. The definition of patriotism according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary reads: “a feeling of love for his or her country and supports its authority and interests”. However, more recently it has become more evident that patriotism in America is coming under attack. No matter where the lines are drawn from a political, economic, racial or from another standpoint, it is seen that there is a bigger divide growing in the United States than any ideas of uniting together for the greater good of the country. We must remember why patriotism is important.

“Patriotism in the United States involves a cultural attachment to the United States. Although there are multiple diverse ethnic backgrounds in America, taking pride in being an American is a very common thing among most American citizens”, or so it was. According to the New York Post, patriotism in the United States is at a “record low”. This year, only 45% of Americans said that they were extremely proud to be an American compared to 2004 when 70% of Americans answered in a survey that were extremely proud to be an American. The United States is fracturing, with more fissures visible every day in the nation.

A consequence of the post-Cold War globalist ideas, the deconstruction of the United States has been assisted by the increase of a neo-Marxist movement, that is now becoming dominant at big American media outlets as well as American colleges and universities. It is also strengthened by an immigration system which has now failed due to there being no more demand to the acculturation of new people. The national aim of American culture is now being separated into divided stories, with the loss in confidence in oneself that had historically inspired Americans to share a dedication to independent freedom and national identity. As a result, American cultural and historical DNA is not being passed down onto generations to come. America has stopped teaching civics in our own schools essentially, and consequently, it is not an uncommon thing today to find an American freshman in college with an indistinct knowledge with the work of the United States government and American national history.

“The third type of remembrance encompasses the emergence of groups”. Due to the progressive politicization in American academics, particularly in humanities, has brought down the rich and complex heritage of modern America to stories created from the color of a person's skin or gender. This recompilation of national identity in America is illustrated the term ‘people of color’, seen with abandon from the evenly large term of ‘whites’ surrounded by constant accusations of racism and discrimination towards people of color. In our daily lives where we conduct business, use media, follow education and take part in our government, Americans are demonstrated with a system where ethic, gender, and racial categories have an impact with things like access to education, jobs, and more. All of this being in a country who went to war in order to put an end to two totalitarian regimes who believed that an individual's identity racially is supposed to define their place in society.

As the concept behind American culture loses its definition, the support for it becoming lost as well. In a poll recorded by Gallup recently, from all Americans, only 47% stated that they were extremely proud to be an American, the lowest percentage recorded since the 18 years that the poll has been conveyed in which less than half of the participants showed those levels of pride in being American. Fifteen years prior, not even more than one generation, the percentage of participants from the survey was at 70%. As shown by the poll, the decrease in national pride was mainly apparent from self-identifying Democrats (32%, compared to 43%in 2017, and 56% in 2013) as well as self-identifying independents (42%, compared to 48% in 2017 and 50% in 2013). More than double the participants who self-identify as Republican answered “yes” to being extremely proud of being an American with a percentage of 74% in 2018 with it being 76% in 2017. The lowest percentage of American pride was shown among younger Americans, ages 18-29 (33%, compared to 55% in 2013). The people who had the most national pride was that of ages ranging from 50-64 with 58% stating they are extremely proud to be an American. College graduates have the least national pride in America with them only having 39% being proud of being American in contrast with those who do not hold a college level education with 52% being proud.

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The present breakage of America into separate groups is a poor sign for the future. National unity as well as the mutuality of responsibilities are necessary to America’s national security. People split from inner conflicts as well as a loss of their pride in their own nation are at risk of being without the resilience that can be brought from a united nation in a time of war or national crisis. While the attack on exceptionalism in America in public begins moving faster, a restricted selection of choices is offered with the occurrences in the collective national memory that are allowed to be conserved and condemned shows the unity tearing apart. “Collective remembrance, the process of public recollection, is the act of groups of people who gather bits and pieces of the past and join them together for a public that will express and consume the constructed memory. What such groups create is not merely a cluster of individual memories: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts”.

Patriotism to former United States President Theodore Roosevelt was nothing more than ‘Americanism’, carrying “the spirit and purpose” of being an American citizen. While speaking during a campaign in 1912, Roosevelt gave meaning to Americanism as following a patriotic commitment to the American nation with an individual's dedication to America as the important worth of a citizen. Roosevelt saw without the immanent quality of being an American citizen that equality under the law would become a political thing and eventually turn into relativism. In a letter written by Roosevelt in 1919 to the American Defense Society, Roosevelt was straightforward about the vital importance of Patriotism as a moral for an American. “There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all”.

To talk about America in the 21st century means not to take any part in ethnonationalism, but for America to bring back as well as push forward an idea of extended networks of people which then lets citizens participate in a sense of solidarity as well as communion with the American people. For decades, people who have been brought up with a postmodernist ideology has spread the idea that nationalism is a bad thing that must be censored, essentially giving off an idea that patriotic national pride is combined with bad totalitarian thoughts of fascism. Ultimately, patriotic national pride is absolutely necessary for a functional polity, as well as extended networks with common values and a shared language and a proper preservation of a large general agreement on the American historical narrative are the needed things that encourages the feeling of mutual responsibility that is essential for a functional public society that will be able to create a compromise on politics a mutual general good.

Unfortunately, the media takes a large amount of responsibility for the roughness of American communication as well as a decline in general morals, summoning a race for ratings, what Daniel Patrick Moynihan has said “defining deviancy down”, meaning that what was once something seen as not accepted has become normal and the things that were at one time acceptable have now began to fade from our public spaces. To encourage this problem, it has become more prevalent in our digital areas with some of the biggest digital media programs being barely usable through the use of insults, arguments and even images with the intent to offend and cause argument. Ultimately digital media, although definitely making the very bad parts of us come out, is a clear reflection of what we’ve become. In order to fix it, we must first fix ourselves.

The people of America are currently at a time of inflection. In order to halt and drive back this deconstruction of what the founding fathers intended to be a people of freedom who share national values as well as democratic principles which go beyond an individual's national birthplace will take a full-on determined attempt. Ultimately, this is a question about protecting against the abandonment of ideals and values that stand beneath the United States.