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Patriots and Victims<\/p>\n
I became politically \u201caware\u201d in the late 1960\u2019s.\u00a0 I grew up in the heat of the civil rights and anti-war movements; both were part of my day-to-day world.\u00a0 It was a time of turmoil: \u00a0a time when Americans were at odds with each other, and with their views of what America was.<\/p>\n
One of the bumper sticker slogans I remember from that time was, \u201cAMERICA \u2013 LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT.\u201d\u00a0 It meant that if you wanted to change America, by ending the Vietnam War, or by fighting for full civil rights for minorities, then somehow you didn\u2019t love America, and you should get out.\u00a0 It meant that questioning authority was somehow un-American, that wanting to make America \u201cbetter\u201d in your own view wasn\u2019t acceptable for an American citizen.<\/p>\n
So here we are, fifty years later.\u00a0 We are perhaps as divided now as we were then, though it seems to me that things were terribly divided then too.\u00a0 And I hear the same sentiment now that I remember from those days.<\/p>\n
There is a Facebook \u201cmeme\u201d going around \u2013 it\u2019s a picture of an American Flag flying from the front porch of a house.\u00a0 It demands that if you\u2019d fly the flag, you should share the \u201cmeme.\u201d\u00a0 It originates from a group that favors President Trump, and it implies that those that support him support the flag \u2013 and those that don\u2019t are against it.<\/p>\n
President Trump has tried to forward this claim, literally wrapping himself in \u201cthe flag\u201d on issue after issue.\u00a0 He has convinced a large group of Americans that their fellow citizens who use flag ceremonies as an opportunity to express their grievances about America are un-American.\u00a0If you are against Trump, you must be against the flag. That is the farthest from the truth.<\/p>\n
There is nothing more American than protest.\u00a0 There is nothing more American than voicing your views, and trying to change America for what you believe is the better.\u00a0 America began in protest and revolution.\u00a0 How can the descendants, actual or political, of Washington and Jefferson, and Sam Adams, Thomas Paine and Crispus Attucks; somehow claim that protest is un-American.\u00a0 It is how we began.\u00a0 It is in the DNA of our nation.<\/p>\n
On the other side, there is a terrible condescension in the anti-Trump, Resistance movement.\u00a0 It is summed up with one term:\u00a0 deplorables.\u00a0 With that one term, we dismiss the concerns of our fellow Americans, we mark them as ignorant, irredeemable, and backward.\u00a0 That is just as wrong as \u201c\u2026LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT.\u201d\u00a0 It denies their legitimate grievances; that the America they thought they knew has changed so radically that they are left out of the American dream.\u00a0 They aren\u2019t wrong, the pace of change in the past twenty years has been dramatic; it is no wonder some feel pushed to the side.<\/p>\n
And there are Americans who are so frustrated that they look to easy answers to explain what has occurred.\u00a0Conspiracies and theories; stories of dreaded cabals of varying kinds that have \u201ctaken\u201d our country have found fertile ground in the turmoil of our times.\u00a0 The changes have happened so fast, and been so dramatic; that it is easy to think there must be some dark and shady forces with purpose behind them.<\/p>\n
And the crisis hasn’t yet been reached. \u00a0We, Americans, have a \u201cfiery trial\u201d still to go through; it will be years before we can put this time in our lives into the past, before reconciliation. \u00a0 But even in the passion and heat of the coming crisis, we, Americans, need to recognize that no one side of the argument has a full monopoly on what is right; or what is American.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a flag flying from my front porch.\u00a0 It\u2019s been there for years.\u00a0 It symbolizes the nation we can be, even if that is not the nation we are.\u00a0 James Madison said it best:\u00a0 \u201c\u2026a more perfect Union…\u201d We are still \u201cperfecting\u201d our Union; two-hundred and thirty-one years after he wrote those words.\u00a0 No matter where you stand on the issues of our time, fly the flag:\u00a0 it represents the nation YOU want to perfect. \u00a0That\u2019s as American as it gets.<\/p>\n
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