Editor’s note: this summary continues the series based on author and history professor Timothy Snyder’s book “On Tyranny”. The goal is to pass on his insights, wisdom, and forecast to those who have not read his works.
Snyder asks, “What is patriotism”? In his examples of what is not patriotic, he suggests “It is not patriotic to ask those working, taxpaying American families to finance one’s own presidential campaign, and then to spend their contributions in one’s own companies.” I’m sure you know who immediately came to my mind.
He adds, “It is not patriotic to admire foreign dictators…to cultivate a relationship with Muammar Gaddafi; or to say that Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin are superior leaders. It is not patriotic to call upon foreign leaders to intervene in American presidential elections. It is not patriotic to cite Russian propaganda at rallies. It is not patriotic to share an adviser with Russian oligarchs. It is not patriotic to appoint advisers with financial interests in Russian companies….It is not patriotic to refer to American soldiers as “losers” and “suckers.” It is not patriotic to take health care from families, nor to golf your way through a national epidemic in which half a million Americans die. It is not patriotic to try to sabotage an American election, nor to claim victory after defeat. It is not patriotic to try to end democracy.”
These are the things a “nationalist” would do, not a patriot. A nationalist, “although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge,” wrote Orwell, tends to be “uninterested in what happens in the real world…the only truth is the resentment we feel when we contemplate others.”
A patriot wants the nation to live up to its ideals…asking us to be our best selves. With universal values, a patriot wishes his country well while wishing that it would do better.
He notes that Democracy failed in Europe in the first half of the last century and is failing in many parts of the world today. “A nationalist will say that “it can’t happen here,” …the first step toward disaster. “A patriot says that it could happen here, but that we will stop it.”
Liz Moore, Editor