What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism

by Dan Rather

Today we are a divided country. Too many decent and law-abiding men and especially women are being told that this nation is not for them, that their values make us weaker, that their voice is better left unspoken. We see elected officials pounding their chests, saying their vision of America represents the only real patriotism. To them I say that patriotism is not a cudgel. It is not an arms race. It also means confronting honestly what is wrong or sinful with our nation and government. I see my love of country imbued with a responsibility to bear witness to its faults.

It is important not to confuse “patriotism” with “nationalism.” As I define it, nationalism is a monologue in which you place your country in a position of moral and cultural supremacy over others. Patriotism, while deeply personal, is a dialogue with your fellow citizens, and a larger world, about not only what you love about your country but also how it can be improved. Unchecked nationalism leads to conflict and war. Unbridled patriotism can lead to the betterment of society. Patriotism is rooted in humility. Nationalism is rooted in arrogance.

When McCarthy came close to defeating Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, New York senator Bobby Kennedy jumped into the race, and President Johnson announced: “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.” McCarthy’s dissent had helped shape the course of history.

Dissent is most controversial during wartime because it is cast as unpatriotic and dangerous to the national cause. But that is precisely the time when a democracy should be asking itself difficult and uncomfortable questions.

Rankin, a fierce critic of the Vietnam War, had a long history of political activism. In 1916, she had become the first woman ever elected to Congress, a Republican representative from Montana, confidently stating, “I may be the first woman member of Congress, but I won’t be the last.” Rankin was an avowed pacifist, and in 1917, she was one of only fifty representatives (and six senators) to vote against American entry into World War I. “I felt . . . the first time the first woman had a chance to say no to war, she should say it,” she explained. Rankin served one term, losing a race for Senate in 1918. But she was reelected to the House in 1940, just in time for another fateful vote. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Rankin followed her pacifist conscience again and cast the sole vote against declaring war. “As a woman,” she said, “I can’t go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else.” This act of dissent was so unpopular that it ended her political career. I disagree strongly with Rankin’s vote on war with Japan. But I also feel that we are a better and stronger nation for having such voices. The role of dissent is to force all of us to question our dogmas and biases. It is to stretch the spectrum of discourse.

But King saw these causes as inextricably linked. A few days after the speech, he was captured on an FBI surveillance tape in a heated debate with his friend Stanley Levison. Levison worried the speech was a disaster that played into the hands of their critics. King was resolute in response. “I figure I was politically unwise but morally wise. I think I have a role to play which may be unpopular.” That quote is as elegant a definition of dissent as you are likely to find.

What is perhaps most striking about the Riverside Church speech, and something I think too often misunderstood about King, is his strong belief that communism was not the answer. For while he was highly critical of the United States, he told his audience, “We must not engage in a negative anti-communism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice.”

Orwell understood that a government that is beyond the reach of accountability has little incentive to tell the truth. Indeed, its power may arise from the obliteration of objective facts. In the world of 1984, contradictory statements lose all sense of context and we are left with preposterous slogans: “War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength.” And yet Orwell asks us, if there is no one with the power to call out a lie as a lie, does it end up ceasing to be a lie?

When I was young, we heard often of how the United States was a great melting pot. It is a fine metaphor as far as it goes. But inclusion, not assimilation, should be the key concept in seeking, ever seeking, a more perfect national union. Our own history has shown that we are stronger as a mosaic than a melting pot. Our nation is bound together more by ideals than by blood or land, and inclusion is in our cultural DNA. We should feel proud that we are not all the same, and that we can share our differences under the common umbrella of humanity.

Warren Buffett once speculated to a group of students about what would happen if, before birth, a genie gave us the opportunity to choose the political, economic, and social system into which we would be born. “What’s the catch?” he said. “One catch—just before you emerge [from the womb] you have to go through a huge bucket with seven billion slips, one for each human. Dip your hand in and that is what you get—you could be born intelligent or not intelligent, born healthy or disabled, born black or white, born in the U.S. or in Bangladesh, etc. You have no idea which slip you will get. Not knowing which slip you are going to get, how would you design the world?” It is a wonderful thought experiment that lays out a provocative case for empathy. Buffett calls his construct “the ovarian lottery.”

As president, Jefferson would launch Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on a transcontinental expedition of discovery. Abraham Lincoln established the National Academy of Sciences. Theodore Roosevelt pioneered modern conservation. Franklin Roosevelt was the first president to appoint an official science adviser. And John F. Kennedy set the United States on the path to the moon.

it would be a mistake to think that the antiscience currents we face today are entirely new. Back in 1980, the science-fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote, “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’

The Library of Congress was founded in 1800 with a modest mission, a reference resource for Congress. But that changed after the British burned Washington during the War of 1812 and the original collection was lost. In response, Thomas Jefferson offered to sell his own library to the U.S. government. His collection of books was considered one of the finest in the New World, containing thousands of volumes on almost every topic imaginable—not just law, statecraft, and history, but also the sciences, philosophy, and the arts. To those who argued that such a disparate set of works was unnecessary for a Library of Congress, Jefferson responded, “There is in fact no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer.”

Perhaps one of the most inspiring visions for our nation can be found in a letter John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail. It was the spring of 1780, he was serving a diplomatic post in Paris, and the final outcome of the Revolutionary War was still in doubt. But Adams had his eyes firmly set on the future. “I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy . . . in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, [and] Musick.”

We expected ourselves and those we elected to office to dream big and experiment, without fear of the failures that are invariably part of tackling tough challenges. This mindset led us to construct the Panama Canal; conquer the Great Depression; build highways, dams, and airports; create a social safety net; make progress on racial justice; lead a burgeoning scientific revolution; and so much more.

It is true that big actions can also have big unintended consequences. The transcontinental railroad not only opened up the frontier, but it also sped the subjugation of the Native Americans and the exploitation of Chinese immigrant labor. Our highway system helped spur the primacy of the automobile, with its attending urban sprawl and pollution. The era of dam building provided water for us to drink and grow our crops, generated electricity, and protected against floods, but we now know that many dams also had severe environmental consequences. We cannot be afraid to act big, but we also cannot be afraid to reassess and address problems that may arise.

At a time when we desperately need to think boldly about the challenges before us, we find many of our politicians arguing that we need to be less ambitious. We hear from too many in Congress about why action is difficult, why something cannot be done. Many of our government agencies have now been turned over to people who are actively seeking to undermine the mission of those agencies. And our national needs go unaddressed. It is impossible to try to freeze ourselves in the status quo, and even more impossible to return to some mythic and misremembered glorious past. We need to remain a nation of new ideas and new initiatives, or we will cease to be the strong and daring country I know and love.

I understand that my time to shape and help this world is passing. This is the circle of life. I hope now to inspire others to love this country, to pledge to work hard to make it a healthier and more just place to live. I ultimately have faith in the basic decency of our American citizenry, and indeed people around the globe. I believe strongly that the core tenets I love most about this nation can be a foundation for commonality and strength once more. I believe in a wide and expansive vision of our national destiny. And I believe in all of you to help make it a reality. Courage.