Love of the U.S. divided between Now and Then
Which political party loves America? Not the United States that once existed, but the flesh-andblood nation that we all live in now.
The debates we have witnessed — too few and far between for the Democrats, frequent enough for the Republicans to constitute a new reality TV show — have provided an incontestable answer to that question.
The Democrats embrace the United States of Now in all of its raucous diversity.
Democrats are not free of nostalgia. They long for the more economically equal America of decades ago and celebrate liberalism’s heydays during the civil rights years.
But Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley all stand up for the rights of a younger America — today’s country — that is less white, more Latino and Asian (and, yes, more Muslim) than was the U.S. of the past. The cultural changes that have reshaped us are welcomed as part of our historical trajectory toward justice.
The Republicans, particularly Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, don’t like our country right now. They yearn for the United States of Then. The current version is cast as a fallen nation.
True, the party shut out of the White House always assails the incumbent. But a deeper unease and even rage characterize the response of many in the GOP ranks to what the country has become. This can cross into a loathing that Trump exploits by promising to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants and block Muslims from entering the country while dismissing dissent from his program of demographic reconstruction as nothing more than “political correctness.”
I am certain that in their hearts, every candidate in both parties still likes to see us as “a shining city on a hill.” Within the GOP, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush have been careful not to abandon the virtue of hope and any confidence in the present. But this makes them stronger as general-election candidates than within their own party.
The stark cross-party contrast complicates any assessment of Saturday’s Democratic debate. As Clinton, Sanders and O’Malley made clear, each believes their own disputes are minor in light of the chasm that has opened between themselves and the GOP.
“On our worst day, I think we have a lot more to offer the American people than the right-wing extremists,” Sanders declared at the debate’s end. O’Malley concluded similarly: “When you listened to the Republican debate the other night, you heard a lot of anger and a lot of fear. Well, they can have their anger and they can have their fear, but anger and fear never built America.”
Democratic solidarity was Clinton’s friend. She emerged stronger simply because neither of her foes made a clear case for upending the campaign’s existing order.
This debate should embarrass the Democratic National Committee for scheduling so few of them, and for shoving some into absurdly inconvenient time slots.
Debates are a form of propaganda in the neutral sense of the word: They are occasions for parties to make their respective arguments. Given that the divide between the parties this year is so fundamental, it’s shameful that Democrats did not try to make their case to as many Americans as possible.
It is time once again for the Sidney Awards — named for philosopher Sidney Hook — when I pick out some of the best long-form essays that you might download for your holiday reading pleasure. This year there were so many fine pieces it’s impossible to read them all without totally ignoring your family.
The first two winners are just great narratives. In “The Man Who Tried to Redeem theWorldWith Logic” in Nautilus, Amanda Gefter described the partnership betweenWalter Pitts andWarren McCulloch. These two geniuses fit together perfectly. They performed amazing intellectual feats, the first of which was coming