Trump and revenge of the nation-state

he first week of the Trump administration has been a vindication of the American nation-state. Anyone who thought it was a “borderless world,” a category that includes some significant portion of the country’s corporate and intellectual elite, has been disabused of the notion within about the first five days of the Trump years.

The theme running throughout President Donald Trump’s inaugural address was the legitimacy of the nation-state as a community, a source of unity and the best means of advancing the interests of its citizens. The address was widely panned, but early polling indicates the public didn’t share the revulsion of the commentariat. The speech’s broadly nationalistic sentiments were bound to strike people as common sense.

“At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens.” Who else would it serve?

“From this moment on, it’s going to be only America first.” Why would anything else come first?

Trump’s speech was less poetic, but in one sense more grounded than George W. Bush’s call for universal liberty in 2005 or Barack Obama’s vision of international cooperation leading to a new era of peace in 2009. Trump spoke of “the right of all nations to put their own interests first.”

If Bush was a vindicator of universal freedom, and Obama, in his more soaring moments, a citizen of the world, then Trump is a dogged citizen of the United States, concerned overwhelmingly with vindicating its interests.

His executive order authorizing the building of the wall is an emphatic affirmation of one of the constituent parts of a nation, namely borders.

In general, immigration is an important focus for Trump’s nationalism because it involves the question of whether the American people have the sovereign authority to decide who gets to live here; of whether the interests of American or foreign workers should be paramount; of whether we assimilate the immigrants we already have into a common culture before welcoming even more.

The Trump phenomenon is pushback against what the late political scientist Samuel Huntington called in his 2004 book “Who Are We?” the “deconstructionist” agenda, a decadeslong project of the country’s “de-nationalized” political and intellectual elites.

Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, Huntington argues, “they began to promote measures consciously designed to weaken America’s cultural and creedal identity and to strengthen racial, ethnic, cultural, and other subnational identities. These efforts by a nation’s leaders to deconstruct the nation they governed were, quite possibly, without precedent in human history.”

If Trump is a welcome rebuke to this attitude, caveats are necessary:

A proper American nationalism should express not just an affinity for this country’s people, as Trump did in his inaugural address, but for its creed, its institutions and its history. These are absent from Trump’s rhetoric and presumably his worldview, impoverishing both.

Trump’s nationalism has the potential to appeal across racial and ethnic lines, so long as he demonstrates that it isn’t just cover for his loyalty to his preferred subnational group.

If Bush was overly expansive in his international vision, Trump could be overly pinched. Bush’s anti-AIDS program in Africa was unvarnished humanitarianism — and will redound to his credit, and the credit of this nation, for a long time.

Finally, Trump’s trade agenda also is an expression of his nationalism. Trade deals should have to pass the nationalinterest test. But protectionism is, historically, a special-interest bonanza that delivers benefits to specific industries only at a disproportionate cost to the rest of the economy.

All that said, the nation-state is back, despite all the forecasts of its demise. It is no more in eclipse than religion, which we also were told would fade away as humanity embraced a more secular, cosmopolitan future.

The lesson is that it’s a mistake to predict the inevitable decline of things that give meaning to people’s lives and involve fundamental human attachments. The nation is one of them, something that Trump, if he gets nothing else, instinctively understands.

KING FEATURES SYNDICATE

Time to unite

It’s hard for us in middle America to understand all the negative, hateful and destructive behavior that has occurred since Donald Trump’s election. My church’s senior pastor believes that if you want to discover if you have idols in your life, look for clues in your checkbook and on your activity calendar. They provide a lot of information about what’s important to you. However, my pastor throws in another factor I think is more revealing. He says to look at areas that cause you to lose control of your emotions. I know from experience that a couple of areas that can jump out in this regard are sports and politics.

The definition of an idol includes “an image or representation of a deity, made or used as an object of worship” and “an object of passionate devotion.” Without being judgmental, it appears that these radical behaviors could be attributed to some people making idols of the government or a political party or its agenda. I didn’t vote for Trump in the Republican primary and I voted against Hillary Clinton in the November elections, so I can understand people being unhappy about Trump’s election. However, it’s time to come together and help unite the United States of America.

Misinformed

I read with great dismay the misinformation in Paul Greenberg’s article (Commentary, Jan. 22). No federal dollars are used for elective abortions. Ninetyseven percent of the services provided by Planned Parenthood are for birth control and health care.Only 3 percent of their service involves abortion, and the only portion reimbursed by Medicaid is for cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is in danger.So, you’re looking at only a fraction of 1 percent being funded by federal or state money.

It would be nice if the GOP would be just as concerned about the health and welfare of the working poor and as interested in saving their lives and health. Before I became eligible for Medicare, I was thankful for the pap smears and mammograms they provided. It seems that just like with our new president, facts don’t matter to Greenberg or our legislators.

Judge not …

Regarding Paul Greenberg’s “A worthwhile debate about saving babies’ lives” (Commentary, Jan. 22): I am not for abortion; I am for women’s right to choose. I am for women’s access to affordable health care. I am against a man, who never has to carry a child to term without regard to the circumstances, dictating the woman to be a baby killer. I try to live by “judge not least ye be judged.”

Bitter harvest

Having planted and harvested many gardens through the years, I have learned well that one reaps what has been sown. America has sown 57 million baby deaths by abortion since 1973. America is now reaping death by mass shootings, drive-by killings, one-on-one murders, etc. America is indeed reaping what she has sown through death to babies. America no longer believes in “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Insult to voters

During the Women’s March of Jan. 21, a cable news station showed one of the demonstrators in Paris holding a placard saying “Make America Think Again.” I recently received a campaign brochure from a Ward 4 city council candidate with the endorsement of a county commissioner. The literature said the candidate supported gun rights and was pro-life. The city council has no control over these sensitive political topics. Trying to push emotional buttons is an insult to the intelligence of Ward 4 voters. They are more concerned about streets, police and fire protection and reliable water service. “Making America Think Again” can start right here at home.