Center field: Why I remain an American patriot

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The Jerusalem Post 07/07/2020

Center field: Why I remain an American patriot

America’s traumatized. We’ve got riots on the streets and Corona-victims filling the hospitals. Statues of presidents are pulled down as fury about past sins builds up. African-American professors run articles lacking all proportion, claiming that “not much, beyond the cosmetic, has changed” since slave days, while maskless Trumpians mindlessly chant “USA, USA” as if that can solve racism, Corona, and every other problem. Meanwhile, the demagogic president lashes out in the White House, while his ahem, ever-maturing contender hides out in his basement. And with nearly twenty million people unemployed , only 24 percent of Americans believe they’re headed in the right direction.

As a presidential historian, I feel irrelevant. My detailed essays linking presidential speeches to earlier ones, because presidents once sought legitimacy from their predecessors, seem absurd today. Donald Trump doesn’t know or care. He lives in the moment. He speaks to feed his ego and preserve his power not sustain our souls or weave constructive links to America’s proud history and redemptive ideals.

Nevertheless, I still toasted America this weekend.

I could hide behind world-weary sighs that it’s been worse. July 4, 2020 ain’t July 3, 1776 with a Declaration of Independence still hotly debated and a Revolutionary War yet to win. Today ain’t July 4, 1860 – as Civil War clouds formed – or July 4, 1940 as a Depression-scarred, violently-divided nation resisted rousing itself against the Nazi threat. And for all today’s pain, confusion, anger and polarization, America has never been as embracing and empowering of immigrants, women, gays, and yes, people of color too.

When assessing complex democracies like America, our striving for perfection should never blind us to the good – nor numb us to the bad. Activists ask: “why not.” Historians also ask: “where have we been” – and “in what direction are we going?”

America passes most of a society’s essential road tests. True, we’re suffering through an ugly moment. Our Commander-in-Chief keeps pouring salt on our political and social wounds. Too-many protestors have lost faith in the very ideals used to heal and progress. And, yes, the gap between rich and poor grows. But, America is heading in the right direction by almost any measure: health, social justice, tolerance, education, fairness, technology, prosperity, and freedom, while acing a key confidence test – is there an earlier moment when a higher percentage of Americans lived this well and this free?

But my confidence doesn’t only come from looking backwards at more sobering July Fourths. It’s forward-looking too. It comes from believing in America’s defining ideas as keys to addressing the very problems it faces. America remains the country seeking the Declaration of Independence’s core goals of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” America remains one of the most life-affirming places on the planet, generating medical breakthroughs, life-saving drugs, technological props and hope – cutting cancer rates, smoking rates, death rates from most diseases.

America continues spreading liberty throughout the land – and the world – while expanding the Declaration’s five most subversive words: “all men are created equal” – with “men” having expanded from white men to black men to everyone. And America remains one of the easiest places in the universe to live happy endings – in our shared Hollywood fantasies and most Americans’ real lives.

Bruised and jumpy today, America nevertheless remains the land of hot dogs and baseball, of the Constitution and the Supreme Court, of the American Dream and of “the people, by the people, and for the people,” of Appomattox – where slavery essentially ended — and the Statue of Liberty – which welcomed my immigrant grandparents — of neighborly “how ya doing” and collegial “have a nice day,” of iPhones and smart pills, of the greatest show on earth – and the world’s first mass middle class civilization.

Despite living in Israel for a decade, I am still a “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” I could no more give up on America than give up on Benjamin Franklin and Sojourner Truth, on Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, on Frank Capra and Betty Friedan, on evolution and Revolution, on Eureka moments and Hail Mary passes, on the faith that the “sun will come out tomorrow” or that the Star-Spangled Banner yet waves.

Such ardent Americanism actually shapes my Zionism. Israel and America are two of the most extraordinary, just, democratic countries in the world – yet two of the world’s favorite targets. I’m frustrated by the nihilists who can only see the America of 1619 – when the slave ships came – and not America of 1776 and 1865 and today – when freedom rang louder and louder, but I’m also frustrated by the fantasists who overlook America’s failures. Similarly, I’m frustrated by the Bash-Israel-Firsters who can only see Israel as a problem and the Boost-Israel-or-elsers who cannot admit any problems with Israel.

Loving both countries teaches that good patriots cannot be complacent, and must be vigilant and visionary. Just like David Ben-Gurion answered “Not yet,” when asked if Israel has fulfilled his dreams, I’m still waiting for America to fulfill its ideals – while working on it, too.

Proper “not-yet-ism” – good dreamers – are activists, catalysts, cataloguing the blessings while exorcising the curses, seeing the opportunities to reform, not just the obstacles to change. With a clear diagnosis, a proper proportion, a commitment to our redemptive ideals, and massive doses of bravery and creativity we – in Israel and America – will succeed, as Thomas Jefferson dreamed, to “right” the “evils” which humanity has usually just been “disposed to suffer.” America’s traumatized. We’ve got riots on the streets and Corona-victims filling the hospitals. Statues of presidents are pulled down as fury about past sins builds up. African-American professors run articles lacking all proportion, claiming that “not much, beyond the cosmetic, has changed” since slave days, while maskless Trumpians mindlessly chant “USA, USA” as if that can solve racism, Corona, and every other problem. Meanwhile, the demagogic president lashes out in the White House, while his ahem, ever-maturing contender hides out in his basement. And with nearly twenty million people unemployed , only 24 percent of Americans believe they’re headed in the right direction.

Nevertheless, I still toasted America this weekend.

Recently designated one of Algemeiner’s J-100, one of the top 100 people “positively influencing Jewish life,” Gil Troy is the author of the newly-released The Zionist Ideas , an update and expansion of Arthur Hertzberg’s classic anthology The Zionist Idea, published by the Jewish Publication Society. A Distinguished Scholar of North American History at McGill University,he is the author of ten books on American History, including The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s .

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