Make the best argument that yesterday's Army parade and yesterday's No Kings demonstrations were very similar and shared the same tone and spirit of America.

It's the position I'd like to take, but let's see if A.I. can sketch it out for me. Go to the links for the full elaboration of the bullet points.

The Grok answer:

First, both the Army parade and No Kings protests were vibrant displays of American identity, rooted in the celebration of freedom and self-determination.... 

Second, the tone of both events was unapologetically bold and assertive, reflecting America’s spirit of standing firm in its convictions.... 

Third, both events drew on America’s historical narrative to stake their claims.... 

Finally, despite their political differences, both events were inclusive in their appeal to broad swaths of Americans.... 

The Army parade and No Kings protests, held on Flag Day and the Army’s 250th birthday, were not just parallel events but complementary expressions of America’s soul: a country that honors its defenders while empowering its dissenters, all under the banner of freedom. Their shared tone—defiant, proud, and deeply patriotic—underscores a unified spirit, even in division.

The ChatGPT answer:

1. Both Were Public Rituals of Patriotism....

2. Both Emphasized Freedom and Individual Agency.... 

3. Both Reflected Deeply American Traditions.... 

4. Both Shared a Spirit of Hope and Determination...

5. Both Spoke in the Language of Symbols... 

The Army parade and No Kings demonstration, seemingly at odds, coexist in the American landscape precisely because freedom allows both. Their very presence, side by side in the same country on the same day, is evidence of a robust civic culture. That is the American spirit: unified not by conformity, but by the freedom to differ—loudly, visibly, and passionately.

I like the argument. I know I need to go back and prompt it with "Now, make the best argument against all that."

"I am happy to have dual citizenship, with access to all 27 EU countries. If the next president is cut from the same cloth as Trump..."

"... I will conclude the dream is over, and it's time to go. This country had so much promise."

So writes a commenter at "Want to leave the U.S. for good? How to get dual citizenship. Depending on your ancestry, you could get a second passport and live abroad" (WaPo).

That's a free-access link, so you can see all the other comments that display a shocking thinness of love for one's native land. Imagine being born in the United States of America, then leaving in a huff and running off to a non-place called "all 27 EU countries." Where's the love?!

If you really hate what the President is doing, what good is it to remove yourself and observe from afar? Presumably, you hate him because of what he is doing to hundreds of millions of people, who will remain where they are, victims of his (as you see it) evildoing? Your leaving the premises does absolutely nothing to help. Why would it matter where you are? 

Trump isn't going to shut down the federal Department of Education.

I'm reading "Trump Chooses Longtime Ally Linda McMahon to Run Education Dept./A friend and financial backer of Donald J. Trump’s, Ms. McMahon, who led the Small Business Administration during his first term, remained close to him during the campaign" (NYT):

While Mr. Trump has repeatedly called for an outright dissolution of the agency, any effort to shutter it would require congressional action and support from some Republican lawmakers whose districts depend on federal aid for public education....

So it's just something to talk about, not actually do. So what is McMahon really going to try to do? She's the chairwoman of the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action.

[T]he America First Policy Institute has set out a more immediate list of changes it says could be achieved through vastly changing the department’s priorities. Those include stopping schools from “promoting inaccurate and unpatriotic concepts” about American history surrounding institutionalized racism, and expanding voucher programs that direct more public funds to parents to spend on home-schooling, online classes or at private and religious schools.

The Washington Post Editorial Board pushes Kamala Harris to pay attention to the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States.

I was surprised to see the Board highlighting the semiquincentennial, but here's the column featured on the front page today — 2 weeks before Election Day — "America has a big birthday coming. Kamala Harris should talk plans. The celebration is a chance to renew our nation’s commitment to the promise of its founding."

Is this an issue the people are clamoring for attention to be paid to? Donald Trump paid attention to it... a year and a half ago. He thought about it on his own and made a dignified speech detailing his multi-part plan for a full-year celebration. So for the WaPo editors to bring this up is to put pressure only on Kamala Harris. Is she supposed to jump at their prodding? There's zero hope of her sounding sincere responding to this one-sided demand. 

The editors say — in a tellingly passive voice:

Efforts are already underway to plan the semiquincentennial, but they got off to a slow start, mirroring much of the country’s political dysfunction.

In other words, the Biden Administration hasn't been doing enough?

The federal commission appointed to oversee the proceedings, writes the Atlantic, “swiftly descended into a morass of charges and countercharges over process, favoritism, hiring, gender discrimination, and budget decisions.”

So here's what cued up the issue. There's an article in The Atlantic, published a week ago: "America Is Suffering an Identity Crisis/In two years, the U.S. will mark its 250th birthday, and the left doesn’t seem to care—giving up on America’s symbols and its very meaning."

The left doesn't seem to care. But if Trump is elected he will preside over the occasion, and he certainly seems to care. I can now understand the WaPo editors' decision to forefront this issue. There's a horror of the Donald Trump Birthday of America Extravaganza and a chilling realization that his Make-America-Great-Again theme fits enragingly perfectly with the occasion. Quick! Present a left-wing alternative vision!

The WaPo editors lamely suggest that Kamala Harris "try to persuade skeptics on her side of the political spectrum that the United States is indeed something worth celebrating." It's a little late for that. But the editors say she's "well-positioned to make this pitch, because as the child of immigrants and a woman of color, she represents in her very candidacy the progress the country has seen." As if this big occasion should revolve around her: Celebrate me! Because I embody what's worth celebrating!

The Atlantic article says that Biden dealt with the "meltdown" at the commission by appointing Rosie Rios as the commission chair. Under her, the key concept seems to be a "radically decentralized" social-media concept called "America's Stories" — a website where anybody/everybody writes anything. This would be inclusive, but it would include all the hostility against America that we expect from the left. Would they resort to censorship? They would have to! 

The Atlantic writer, the Yale historian Beverly Gage, says:

For the past 60 years, much of American historical scholarship has been about exposing a darker story behind self-congratulatory myths.

Next time you propose a toast at a birthday party, try exposing a darker story behind the self-congratulatory myths.

As a believer in that effort, I have long shared the left’s ambivalence about patriotic symbols: the flag, the Founders, the national anthem, the Fourth of July. Today, though, I feel an urgency to reclaim and redefine all these things, lest they be ceded to those darker forces historians like to write about.

So you and your fellow historians devoted yourself to telling the "darker story" and now, as the people look to celebrate a big birthday, you are worried that they aren't going to frame the event around your dark story but will look to the kind of characters — the "darker forces" — that you've been disparaging all these years? People are drawn to the good — to an uplifting idea of what the country means — and you see that very optimism as an embrace of the darkness.

Nearing the end, the historian comes out with: "[N]ow that I think of it, why not wear the hat and fly the flag?" Well, for one thing, flying a U.S. flag at your house is regarded as equivalent to having a Trump yard sign.

We have a U.S. flag at our front door. But I'd consider bringing it inside for the next few weeks, because I don't like exacerbating the anguish in the neighborhood as the impending Make-America-Great-Again victory comes into focus.

"The horse appears to be digitally composed because its front and hind legs do not represent any phase of natural movement at the walk, trot, canter, or gallop."

"Based on its leg position the horse appears to be trotting with his hind legs and cantering with his front!"

So says a commenter at the NYT Style piece, "Dissecting the ‘Cowboy Carter’ Cover: Beyoncé’s Yeehaw Agenda/On Tuesday, the pop star revealed her new album’s cover, a constellation of country signifiers reminding fans of her Texas roots."

The "Style Desk" writers are saying things like "I love how she and the horse have matching hair," "she’s clearly been trying to reinscribe images of Black women into the history of the cowboys and the West," and "Beyoncé is looking directly into the camera with her face forward and it really feels like a reclaiming" and "Beyoncé seems to believe she has to position herself as a cowgirl on a horse, wearing red, white and blue, holding the American flag on an album cover to drill it into people’s heads that her interest in country isn’t a fad."

Here's the photo/illustration under discussion:

"Regarding the betrayal of the motherland, the president is deeply mistaken. We are patriots of our motherland."

Said Yevgeny Prigozhin, quoted in "Russia-Ukraine War/Putin Vows ‘Decisive Actions’ as Wagner Chief Claims Part of Key Military Complex/Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner paramilitary group, entered the courtyard of Russia’s southern military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don, seen in video verified by The Times" (NYT).

"He sent a message to the world that we’re not just a bunch of lumberjacks and hockey players up here. We’re capable of sensitivity and poetry."

Said Geddy Lee of Rush, in a 2019 documentary about Gordon Lightfoot, quoted in "Gordon Lightfoot’s 10 Essential Songs/The Canadian singer-songwriter, who died on Monday at 84, brought his rueful baritone to memorable, melancholy material" (NYT).

I hadn't really thought enough about Canadians to have the notion that they were bunch of lumberjacks and hockey players or even to have noticed that they might feel sensitive about our thinking of them like that, if, in fact, we do think about them much, which, as I just said, I did not. Mostly, we — I, anyway — think about Canadians on an individual basis, when one of them serves up some excellent artistry and hand delivers it to us. We're not distracted by second-rate Canadians. In that light, they seem quite great. Take heart, Geddy Lee. Don't have an inferiority complex based on how other people think about your country. And, by the way, what's wrong with lumberjacks? It seems to me, America loves lumberjacks. I invite people to think of Wisconsin as full of lumberjacks. And hockey players. And sensitive artists.

"We could never talk negatively about America in front of my father... He did not have much but he really, really loved America. Isn’t that funny?"

Said Daniel Smith, quoted in "Daniel Smith, one of the last children of enslaved Americans, dies at 90/He grew up hearing stories from his father, who was born into bondage during the Civil War. Decades later, he marched in Washington and Selma with fellow civil rights activists" (WaPo).

"Then I went on musing about why it was thought better and higher to love one's country than one's county, or town, or village, or house."

"Perhaps because it was larger. But then it would be still better to love one's continent, and best of all to love one's planet."

Wrote Rose Macaulay, in "The Towers of Trebizond" (1958).

I ran into that quote because — as you see in the previous post — I looked up "muse" in the OED. 

"It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Democrats have seriously erred by lumping Hispanics in with 'people of color' and assuming they embraced the activism around racial issues..."

"... that dominated so much of the political scene in 2020, particularly in the summer.... Crime as an issue rated higher with these voters than immigration or racial equality, two issues that Democrats assumed would clear the path to big gains among Hispanic voters.... The findings about relatively positive Hispanic attitudes toward police have been confirmed by poll after poll, as concern about crime in their communities has spiked. An important thing to remember about the Hispanic population is that they are heavily oriented toward upward mobility and see themselves as being able to benefit from available opportunities to attain that. Three-fifths of Latinos in the national exit poll said they believed life would be better for the next generation of Americans. They are also patriotic. By well over 3:1, Hispanics in the VSG survey said they would rather be a citizen of the United States than any other country in the world and by 35 points said they were proud of the way American democracy works....  Clearly, this constituency does not harbor particularly radical views on the nature of American society and its supposed intrinsic racism and white supremacy. They are instead a patriotic, upwardly mobile, working class group with quite practical and down to earth concerns."

From "The Democrats’ Hispanic Voter Problem It's Not As Bad As You Think—It’s Worse" by Ruy Teixeira (SubStack).

"But I say, this is the greatest rally in the history of our country, this is the greatest movement in the history of our country.... And it’s probably the greatest movement in the history of our world...."

"Call it, make America great again, call it America first, call it what you will. I believe it’s the greatest movement probably in the history of the world. It’s just starting. It’s just starting. We are one movement, one people, one family, and one glorious nation under God. So with love of our nation, swelling in our hearts, and it does swell in your hearts. That’s why you’re standing here in the rain, listening to this person. You’re saying, 'Darling, it’s raining. Let’s go home.' But nobody is leaving all the way back hundreds and like football fields behind, football fields. 'Darling, it’s raining,' but they say, 'We’re not going home because we love our country.' But with swelling in our hearts, the spirit of America is stirring ourselves. And I say these words to you, and you’ve heard these words before, in some cases many times before, we will make America powerful again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America strong again. We will make America, despite what you’re seeing today so sad and so pathetic, we will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And you know what it is, we will make America great again. Thank you Alabama. God bless you all."

Donald Trump dished out hearty helpings of intense hyperbole and corny warmth at his August 21st rally in Alabama. The transcript is now out: here. 

The hearts are swelling —  swelling! — and the rhetoric is wholly swollen: It's the greatest movement the history of our world — probably. 

Despite what you’re seeing today so sad and so pathetic, we will make America proud again... and don't people want to feel proud? How easy is the other side making it for Trump when they're pushing shame — imposing shame. It's obvious that Trump is running for President, running hard, though he can't say it yet for legal reasons having to do with campaign finance law. 

I'd say it will be hard for any Democrat to run against his hugeness and his logic-transcending emotional power, and yet we just saw Joe Biden run against him, run against him and win, using a minimalist, barely-there approach. 

"The specifically English hatred of patriotism has long been kept alive by its intellectual classes, the people who, as George Orwell wrote, 'would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during God Save the King than of stealing from a poor box.'"

"Because England was not the creation of intellectuals, patriotism has never been an intellectual pastime. The ecstasies of 19th-century Romantic nationalism which gave birth to Germany and Italy were forged by poets, musicians and the re-assemblers of lost national epics and folk traditions. By this time England had been muddling along for a millennium. Unlike nations ushered into being by Enlightenment intellectuals which enshrined philosophical abstractions as national principles ('liberty, equality and fraternity' for Republican France, 'freedom' for the United States), British patriotism comes from below. Accordingly it is usually defined in hilariously prosaic terms: queueing, warm beer, roast beef, rain. These are all things disliked by intellectuals.... Our long tradition of national self-hatred has in some ways stress-tested the national consciousness. Self-hatred doesn’t portend a 'chasm.' It is something we are long-sufferingly accustomed to. Things are more dangerous in brittler, prouder America." 

From "It’s deeply British to question our patriotism/A tradition of tolerating dissent is a sign of national strength rather than something to fret over" by James Marriott (London Times).

We're brittler than Brits, he says. And prouder. He sounds proud, you might say, but not proud of his country, and that's his point about pride.

I do think our intellectuals look down on patriotism too, though less amusingly. There's a lot of expression of patriotism in America because most of us don't take our cues from intellectuals. I'm sure at least half of my readers are, right now, rankling at my acceptance of Marriott's word "intellectuals" to refer to America's present-day elite.

The top-rated comment at the London Times quotes James Boswell’s "Life of Johnson" (entry dated April 7, 1775):

Patriotism having become one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apothegm, at which many will start: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest.

Have you noticed all the anti-4th-of-July articles?

Here's one I'm just catching up on: "Maybe it’s time to admit that the Statue of Liberty has never quite measured up" (WaPo).

It's time! Why is it time? Is there a "Time's Up" movement that's sweeping up all the manifestations of love for America? No more enjoyment of the comfortable attributes of everyday patriotism!

Here's an excerpt from the column, which is by WaPo's art and architecture critic Philip Kennicott. 

The ironies and blind spots pile up. Liberty was depicted as a woman, at a time when women didn’t have the right to vote. In 1882, the United States passed the nakedly racist Chinese Exclusion Act; a year later, construction of the base of the statue began with Chinese laborers among the workforce. The idea of the statue was associated with the 100th anniversary of the revolution that brought American independence. But Bartholdi created a sedate, classicizing and mostly sexless figure, not the radical revolutionary icon of liberty known in France as Marianne (the bare-chested woman seen in Delacroix’s 1830 painting, “Liberty Leading the People).”

Like breasts slipping out of a bodice, that quotation mark has slipped outside of the parenthesis. Here's the Delacroix:

Lots of guns in that picture. Kennicott implies that this woman (Marianne) is not "mostly sexless," but it's a call to arms, not a call to sex. Does Kennicott think the pantsless man in the foreground is sexy? 

Speaking of sex:

Stop the nay-saying — neigh-saying? — this is delightful and lovable.

I wish they could bring John Denver back to life just so he could sue Mark Zuckerberg for this.

pic.twitter.com/SDAWsIByOh

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) July 4, 2021

Via Instapundit, who says "But since this didn’t happen by accident, why is Zuck suddenly trying to look like a patriotic redneck? Because there’s a reason."

There are depths, presumably, but purely superficially, it's delightful and lovable. It's silly, corny Americana. Perfect for the 4th (the 5th). 

And it makes a nice contrast to that NYT article we were all reading yesterday: "A Fourth of July Symbol of Unity That May No Longer Unite/In a Long Island town, neighbors now make assumptions, true and sometimes false, about people who conspicuously display American flags."

Politicians of both parties have long sought to wrap themselves in the flag. But something may be changing: Today, flying the flag from the back of a pickup truck or over a lawn is increasingly seen as a clue, albeit an imperfect one, to a person’s political affiliation in a deeply divided nation. 

Supporters of former President Donald J. Trump have embraced the flag so fervently — at his rallies, across conservative media and even during the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol — that many liberals.... worry that the left has all but ceded the national emblem to the right. 

Dan Rather is afoot.

"Patriotism is rooted in humility. Nationalism is rooted in arrogance."
- Dan Rather, "What Unites Us" (2020) https://t.co/tILhFUtYj4

— Donald R. Koelper (@Donald_from_HI) October 5, 2020

Seen because the name Dan Rather is trending on Twitter this morning. He seems to have a new book.

Do you like that aphorism? "Patriotism is rooted in humility. Nationalism is rooted in arrogance."

Patriotism is rooted in _________________.

How would you fill in that blank? Pick your favorite from my list and discuss other options in the comments.

humility

pride

love

shared interest

shared delusion

history

white supremacy

familiarity/proximity

sentimentality/convention

 

pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: Let's also use a survey to examine the other half of the aphorism:

Nationalism is rooted in _______________.

arrogance

love

fear or hatred of outsiders

feelings of racial supremacy

the charisma of a leader

self-interest/self-protection

history

patriotism

 

pollcode.com free polls

AND: As long as we're doing surveys...

Dan Rather is rooted in _____________.

journalism

love

hostility

depleted soil

 

pollcode.com free polls

What just happened?

Trump just leapt 7 points in one day in the "strongly approve" column at Rasmussen.



The change in the approve column was only 2 points. It's the strongly approved that jumped. In one day. Some of that is just the usual imprecision of polls, but that's a huge jump. Did something specific happen? There was the signing of the Middle East agreement. That was 3 days ago.

There was the news that Trump got nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize — for 2 different peace agreements. I see — also at Rasmussen — that "A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 45% of American Adults think Trump should be given the Nobel Peace Prize for the new peace deals and keeping America out of new wars, among other things." 46% say he doesn't, so Biden backers can hold tight to that.

Can it be the 1776 project, designed to go counter the 1619 Project?

I live-blog my first reading of Joe Biden's convention speech.

Transcript (with punctuation improved in spots based on the video):

Good evening, Ella Baker, a giant of the civil rights movement left us with this wisdom: give people light and they will find the way. Give people light.

I give this post my "light and shade" tag (one of my favorites).  I don't remember ever hearing about Ella Baker, but it's a good quote, and it sets up a theme, and gives us something we can use to test the success of this speech. He must give light. He cannot simply claim to be the light. Jesus said, "I am the light of the world," but Biden is not Jesus.

Those are words for our time. The current president has cloaked American darkness for much too long, too much anger, too much fear, too much division here.

I don't yet know if Biden is going to claim to be the light, but he has asserted that Trump is the dark. The dark is defined as anger, fear, and division, but I don't know how the Democrats can say they are not part of that darkness. The speech is already marked with divisiveness: The other side is the darkness and we bring the light.

And now I give you my word. If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us. Not the worst. I’ll be an ally of the light, not the darkness.

So he's not the light, but an ally of the light.

It’s time for us, for We, the People to come together and make no mistake. United, we can and will overcome this season of darkness in America.

"We can... overcome." Not: We shall overcome. He didn't Lyndon Johnson it! If he'd said "We shall overcome" it would have tied to the Civil Rights Movement, and he did begin the speech with a quote from "a giant of the civil rights movement," but he's not talking about racial justice specifically here. He's talking in the most generic way about light and darkness. There's nothing about any specific people, just all the people, the ethereal entity "We, the People," which needs to "come together."

We’ll choose hope over fear, facts, over fiction, fairness, over privilege....

Pretty much everyone chooses those things in the abstract, but he's telling us what we will do. What's the evidence of that? It seems to me that We, the People have been, in reality, choosing the negative side of each of those binaries, but if Donald Trump can be made to embody fear, fiction, and privilege, then it's correct to say we'll choose hope, facts, and fairness if only we vote him out of office.

Biden accepts the Democratic Party nomination for President, but if he is elected, he'll be "an American President," working for everyone, "not just our base or our party":

This is not a partisan moment. This must be an American moment. Someone with a cause for hope and light and love — hope for our future, light to see our way forward, and love for one another. 

I've been wondering where's the love. He's offering love — love and hope and light. That's all very abstract, of course.

No, nearly a century ago, Franklin Roosevelt pledged a new deal in a time of massive unemployment, uncertainty, and fear. Stricken by a disease — stricken by a virus — FDR insisted that he would recover and prevail, and he believed America could as well. And he did. And we can as well. This campaign isn’t just about winning votes. It’s about winning the heart and yes, the soul of America — winning it for the generous among us, not the selfish when needed for workers who keep this country going, not just the privileged few at the top, winning for those communities who have known the injustice of a knee on the neck, for all the young people [who] have known only America being  rising inequity and shrinking opportunity....

The metaphorical "knee on the neck" has affected whole communities... but weren't these communities in cities run by the Democratic Party?

And now history has delivered us to one of the most difficult moments America has ever faced: four historic crises.

The 4 crises are: the pandemic, the economy, the "call for racial justice," and climate change.

As many have said America is at an inflection point...

Inflection point! (I blogged about the term "inflection point" twice yesterday — 1, 2 — after Kamala Harris used it in her speech.)

We can choose a path to becoming angrier, less hopeful, more divided, a path of shadow and suspicion or, or we can choose a different path and together take this chance to heal, to reform, to unite, a path of hope and light.

As if the idea of light could meet 4 crises. By the way — only 4? Why not 6?



Back to Joe:

When Biden introduced a bill to make it a crime to burn the American flag.

It was back in 1989, right after the Supreme Court had held that it violated the First Amendment to make it a crime to burn the flag to express a political opinion. Look at the gravity and sincerity (or did I see a smirk?). [ADDED: WaPo's code to embed the clip did not work, but you can watch the video without a WaPo subscription here.]

"Symbols are important... We have a symbol, unlike the court’s inability to recognize it, a symbol that is needed to unite this nation, this diverse nation, a symbol is the flag."

And if that statute didn't work, he wanted a constitutional amendment. He was ready to cut back the First Amendment. [ADDED: Here's video of Biden talking about that in 1989.]

I'm reading about this in the Washington Post — "Joe Biden used to agree with Trump on flag burning. Where does he stand now?" by Karen Tumulty.

A version of Biden’s legislation passed Congress and became law. On May 14, 1990, the day the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging its constitutionality, Biden held a news conference and declared the government has a “legitimate interest” in protecting the flag. The court struck down the law, citing the First Amendment’s protection of free speech....

That was entirely predictable, but Biden and others served their political interest by flaunting an intense desire to protect the flag.

The NYT calls the pandemic "the greatest existential threat in our lifetimes" — presumably greater than nuclear annihilation and anthropogenic climate change.

Maybe whatever is going on right now seems bigger than everything else, but the pandemic, at its worst, was only set to wipe out 5% of us, and nuclear war was going to kill us all. As for climate change, if it's not worse than killing 5% of us — mostly the old — then it's not as bad as it's been portrayed in the press.

I'm reading "The Most Patriotic Thing You Can Do Right Now/Our nation is rising, however imperfectly, to meet the challenge posed by the coronavirus pandemic. That needs to be said more often" by the NYT Editorial Board.

Ah, it seems that only a few weeks ago, there were mainstream media voices who would have called Donald Trump "the greatest existential threat in our lifetimes."

But the pandemic is the "existential threat" that we've done the most about — taken so seriously and changed so much of what we are doing. Maybe we need to call it the "the greatest existential threat in our lifetimes" to make sense out of how much we've done. We haven't been willing to sacrifice so much to deal with climate change — to radically shrink economic activity and to stay home or very near home. Much of what we've done for the pandemic is also what we could do for climate change if we took it deadly seriously.

Why did we do it? Deaths were happening before our eyes, and experts told us this is what we all need to do, and the whole world was doing it at once, and we understood that it needed to be done right away. That is what's greatest about the pandemic: The way We the People of the World acted in response to the thing — not the thing itself.

Now, to read the editorial. It begins with a "thank you," and it advises us not to look only at the failures but to look at all the good "the vast majority of Americans have done." Why limit it to Americans? Because it's Memorial Day?

This weekend, as we honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our country, it’s worth pausing to acknowledge the smaller but essential patriotic sacrifices we are all making today, for one another...

We've done a lot of "smaller" things. Whether they were and are "essential," we'll never know, and we'll analyze and politicize for as long as our lifetime lasts.

You’re doing great, my fellow Americans. What you have been asked to do is not easy...

But it is much easier than giving your life in battle.

... but you’re doing it. And you’ve already made a big difference. People are alive today who might otherwise not be, thanks to the sacrifices you have made and are continuing to make....

The editors call on us to continue. It's a thanks in advance:

Until there is a vaccine, which could be years from now, the simple acts of wearing a mask and practicing social distancing may be the most reliable ways to stem the spread of the disease and save more lives.

And if you don't believe in the cause, don't protest:

The most patriotic thing that Americans can do right now is not to carry military-style rifles to a protest that shuts down their state legislature, or to spread baseless conspiracy theories online, or to pick fights in a supermarket over reasonable public health measures....

Or at least, don't do the sorts of protests that are never a good idea, whether they're about a pandemic or anything else. The editors don't go so far as to tell Americans that it's not "patriotic" to have protests about our disagreement with what the government tries to force us to do.

As Hillary Clinton famously said: "I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration."

"Richard Nixon's most lasting rhetorical contribution to American politics came at the tail end of a 32-minute speech. Exactly 50 years ago Sunday..."

"... and less than a year into his presidency, Nixon presented his plan for a 'just peace' in what had become a Southeast Asian morass.... 'So tonight, to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans, I ask for your support,' he said. By this he was referring to the white working and middle classes of the nation's heartland, the 'non-shouters' and 'non-demonstrators' he had invoked a year earlier at the Republican National Convention.... Nixon understood that, by 1968, millions of white Americans detested what they saw as growing disrespect for authority and the American way.... ...Nixon neatly conflated the politics of resentment with the feeling of victimhood at the heart of many reactionaries' sense of identity. Society was rapidly changing, and they wanted no part of it. These 'forgotten Americans,' as Nixon called them, valued their all-white neighborhoods and schools, and they appreciated America's defense of the free world. So when Nixon promised 'law and order,' he sent a message that he would stop these changes by silencing activists on college campuses and keeping America's cities from burning.... [T]he 'silent majority' was about race, yes, but it was also about youth. Millions of patriotic Americans despised the young activists they saw on their television sets, viewing them as spoiled and elitist malcontents whose drug-induced protests were destroying the nation from within - while their non-college-going, working-class counterparts fought for the country in Vietnam.... Today it is President Donald Trump who is giving voice to this same white population. Like Nixon before him, Trump uses a celebration of the 'silent majority' - it's 'back,' he declared in 2015..."

From "How Richard Nixon captured white rage - and laid the groundwork for Donald Trump" by Scott Laderman (which I originally encountered at The Eagle, but I see that it's also in The Washington Post, here). Laderman is a history professor and the author of "The 'Silent Majority' Speech: Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War, and the Origins of the New Right." This new book is only 192 pages and costs $31.69 on Kindle — $107.70 as a hardback book. Those are some strange prices!

Anyway... I've had Nixon's "silent majority" speech noted on my calendar — on November 3rd — for a long time, and I really wanted to blog it for you as one of my "50 years ago today" posts. I tried watching the speech yesterday, but I could not make it. It is so awkward and painful:



Now that I know "silent majority" is at the very end, I'll recommend starting here, with "I know it may not be fashionable to speak of patriotism or national destiny these days...":



Please note that Nixon's appeal to the great silent majority in this speech is completely about the Vietnam War. He's trying to summon support for his effort to "win the peace." There's nothing racial or anti-youth in this speech. There's nothing divisive in what he's saying: "Let us be united for peace." Of course, everyone I knew hated him. I was a couple months into my college career at the time, and I assure you we all hooted at the TV screen and regarded him as a horrendous villain, whatever he did.

Two hundred years ago this Nation was weak and poor. But even then, America was the hope of millions in the world. Today we have become the strongest and richest nation in the world. And the wheel of destiny has turned so that any hope the world has for the survival of peace and freedom will be determined by whether the American people have the moral stamina and the courage to meet the challenge of free world leadership.

Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism.

And so tonight — to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans — I ask for your support.

ADDED: In saying "to you, the great silent majority," he had to be leaving some people out. Like Hillary with her "basket of deplorables" or Romney with his 47%, Nixon had the idea that some Americans could not be reached. And he set this group to the side as he made his appeal. Just before he got to the part of the speech quoted above, he spoke of a minority, and these were the people exemplified by the protest sign, "Lose in Vietnam, bring the boys home." He said that "a vocal minority" can't "dictate" the policy. But he did address the minority with kind words:

I respect your idealism. I share your concern for peace. I want peace as much as you do.... I want to end [the war] so that the energy and dedication of you, our young people, now too often directed into bitter hatred against those responsible for the war, can be turned to the great challenges of peace, a better life for all Americans, a better life for all people on this earth.