I agree with Omar El Akkad’s concern about the possibility of a second American Civil War, expressed in his op-ed in the Globe and Mail but there’s a lot to disagree with in the piece as well, beginning with this statement in the caption, presumably from the editors:
Barack Obama’s presidency was supposed to mark a great leap forward for the United States. But, as Omar El Akkad discovered as he travelled across America this year, the election of Donald J. Trump has turned the country against itself.
Barack Obama’s election to the presidency demonstrated that the United States had changed since the 1950s, a great improvement. The manner in which Mr. Obama’a term of office unfolded demonstrated little or no respect for a majority of the country. Congressional Democrats and President Obama were not forced into that position. They chose it and blamed it on their political opponents, transparently abetted by a servile press.
Or this from Mr. El Akkad himself:
For the past four years, I have lived in America, but America does not belong to me. Here, I am part of a minority that constitutes the majority of the world: I am a person of colour. I am an immigrant in a country that purports to be a melting pot but is in reality a crucible, a vessel of fierce and fiercely luminous burning.
There’s so much wrong with that paragraph it’s hard to know where to start. First, “melting pot” and “crucible” are synonyms. He’s trying to draw a contrast where none exists.
Second, that “America does not belong to me” is at it should be. If I were to visit Egypt or Qatar, they would not “belong to me”. Becoming an American means adopting certain beliefs. As Chesterton put it America is a country founded on a creed. I do not find a single piece of evidence in the piece that Mr. has adopted the beliefs that at least used to be commonplace among Americans, at least aspirationally. These beliefs include self-reliance, believing that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”, and that individual conduct matters more than group identity.
Perhaps being an American is obsolete. Perhaps the country belongs to no one any more.
He seems to find protest a troubling sign. That’s a misconception shared by many non-Americans. Self-criticism, including vehement self-criticism, has been distinctive of the United States for the last two hundred years, something practically unique in the world. It’s not a sign of weakness but rather a sign of strength.
My concerns about the United States are different from Mr. Akkad’s. What I see is a loss of confidence in our country’s virtue, a desire to punish the United States, a thirst for riches rather than a love of freedom, and a longing need for an aristocracy rather than self-reliance. There are just too many people who want too many different, conflicting things.
Bring it on. I have weapons, and I ain’t afraid to use them.
Burn, baby, burn.
He seems to have assimilated in this sense – he now sees the world as many American progressives do, a binary where one side is “white” and the other is “of color.”
Vox Day and others make the useful observation that Chesterton was wrong; the US is not based on a creed, it is not a proposition nation, it is the product of White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant Men. The Declaration, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Flag, the Anthem and the Pledge are quintessentially WASP Male. They are not the products of the Irish, German, Italian, Jewish or any other ethnic or racial group, and no group other than the WASP Male really has any allegiance or ownership in any of them. In fact, only WASP Men can even understand them. Certainly, no minority has any grasp of freedom of speech.
In that respect, those NFL players kneeling during the Anthem and presentation of the Flag are correct. They are not Americans (cannot be Americans), and the Flag and Anthem do not represent them and, in fact, might be hostile towards them. Racist, if you will.
When America was 85% White, we could ignore race; even ethnic divisions among the White Nations faded. But, as Whites as a group become a minority, albeit the largest, the issue of race and ethnicity will become the determining issue in all disputes.
This need not lead to open armed conflict, but history is not sanguine on that point. However, I do not see any breakup of the US. If inter-racial and inter-ethnic violence become common, the current Ruling Class will evolve into a brutal, totalitarian dictatorship and suppress the violence.
Was there anything in that article that couldn’t have been written from another country based upon news clippings? He observed bad traffic in NYC, and found that Boulder has some liberals angry about Trump? That he can spin together a loose collection of anti-American observations that a British paper will pay to print while he tries to attract readers on his book tour. It’s a two-fer.
Barack Obama’s election to the presidency demonstrated that the United States had changed since the 1950s, a great improvement. The manner in which Mr. Obama’a term of office unfolded demonstrated little or no respect for a majority of the country. Congressional Democrats and President Obama were not forced into that position. They chose it and blamed it on their political opponents, transparently abetted by a servile press.
I read this, and things like this, all over the place on the right,mans I don’t understand it at all. What did Obama do that excluded more than half of America?
To me, he was a pretty moderate President, pre-compromising with Republicans, and then getting taken to the cleaners when his “reasonable middle ground†position was taken as the start of negotiations. He did nothing particularly great or bad. He was a caretaker president.
He was also black.
I look at my views on him (and the views of basically everyone I encounter in my bubble, plus my conservative NY family), and Obama’s skin tone, and conclude that the main objection was racial. How am I wrong?
(I would honestly like to be wrong)
Gustopher, I would like to respond to that.
Obama was well spoken, albeit reading scripts from a teleprompter. That was smart, avoided misunderstandings Trump is given to. But for me it began to be clear that when Obama removed his flag lapel pin, and was called on it, He had to admit, He just didn’t like this country.
Neither did his minister , the reverend Wright.
Then, after election, the apology tour, bowing before a dictator in Saudi Arabia.
True, despite these signals from him that he hated the country he was elected to lead, his actions were very moderate, even to the point of being, as you say, a caretaker president.
One of his pre-election comments, “We need a civilian force at least as large and well funded as the U.S. military”, worried me, what? Brownshirts? Turns out he only meant federal employees pushing papers around.
Maybe his blackness worried some people, but I never considered him Black, as in a decendent of the slaves, He is half white, raised by whites, and probably a quarter Arabic.
Gustopher — Yeah, race is a factor. But beyond that ….
Ignore his skin color, close your eyes, listen to the man. Obama pretty much comes across as an old-fashion WASP. Dark suit, narrow tie, black shoes, not much expression, not especially loud when he talks, not particularly apt to brag, seems to be well educated. Donald Trump is … uh, boisterous, let’s say.
Which would you prefer to have over you, day-by-day as a manager? I think we’ve discovered 30% of Americans really dislike WASPs and prefer people with Trump-style personalities.
Gray — so, your claim comes down to Obama didn’t feel it in his heart and wear his patriotism on his sleeve? (And then the apology tour nonsense and the bowing…)
I’ve never understood the “America: Right or Wrong†crowd. America is not perfect, it never has been. Slavery is enshrined in our beginnings as a nation. Women didn’t get the right to vote until 1900ish. Blacks were routinely denied their right to vote until the 1960s. Gays were forced to stay in the closet until recently. We’ve bombed countries we shouldn’t have. We tortured some folks. The indigenous folks didn’t fare so well. The Trail Of Tears was not filled with tears of joy. This isn’t some radical, crazy belief, this is just history.
If you love America, you want it to be better than it has been. You want America to reach the lofty ideals that it was founded on, rather than stay mired in its failings. Again, this isn’t radical.
Our founding fathers wrote tremendously lofty documents enshrining principles that they did not always live up to. We honor them by attempting to live up to their principles, while acknowledging their failings and doing what we can to remedy those failings or at least not perpetuate those failings. Again, this is not radical.
Obama spoke to a forward thinking America. If you deliberately listen to only half the message, I think that’s on you, not on the messenger.
I love my country. I love my country for the good that it has set out to do, and the good that it has done, despite its stumbles along the way. We can do better, and we generally slowly do better — slowly, but often faster than anyone else — and that’s why I love America.
Obama, from his statements, seems to love America the same way.
Fun Fact: Thomas Jefferson rewrote the Bible to remove the divinity of Christ.
I wish we taught things like that in school. A lot of America would find that to be an affront to their religion, and would react more strongly to that than something that doesn’t affect directly them, like The Trail of Tears. It would demythologize the Founding Fathers and help make it clear that they didn’t always get everything right and that it’s good and healthy to criticize them and question them.
(The irony is that I am totally on Jefferson’s side on that one)
Well, I don’t have to be right about everything, or, anything, I’m talking about, I guess how Obama’s rhetoric made me FEEL. I do believe his rhetoric led directly to the election of Donald Trump. Whose presidency, probably will be about as average as Obama’s.
I think the relevant point is the Globe and Mail is Canadian not British, and the author is Egyptian-Canadian.
My pet theory that op-ed articles are selected to get readers to become subscribers by reinforcing their existing ideas seems to be at work here. The Globe and Mail tries to be the paper of record In Canada and it’s audience is anyone who fancies being part of the Canadian establishment.
I am no expert in Canada and Canadian American relations but I can say with confidence that the Canadian establishment is confused and alarmed by Trump. It really is the curse of being so close and so small to the US, what cannot be easily understood of the US is usually felt to be very alaming and blamed on the usual sins (which maybe true or maybe false, I won’t take a position on that in this comment). So the article fits that meme.
Think of reading articles about Canada (including Quebec) from American media, or Brexit from Irish media; you would get a pretty funny picture too.
Op-eds are one way of expressing the outlet’s editorial opinion while preserving a facade of neutrality.
An acquaintance of mine, Dominic Crossan, a New Testament scholar, holds the controversial view that the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus developed late in apostolic times. In other words he doesn’t think it was the original teaching.
My take is with the rise in importance in subscriber revenue to newspapers, op-Ed’s function is less expressing the newspapers opinion and convincing reader’s thinking and more convincing readers that this is safe space to get their news (that the news will follow the op-ed and hopefully the readers inclination).
“I think the relevant point is the Globe and Mail is Canadian not British . . .”
LOL. Mia culpa, but this piece seems even less interesting from a Canadian p.o.v. I think the percentage of Canaidans that have been to a few places in the U.S. would be much higher than Britain.
I guess the framing stands out most to me. The piece suggests wisdom garnered through an ongoing book tour, and knowing the nature of the book and the type of people who attend, the framework represents a fairly narrow, select population, who might be encouraged to attend the later legs.
SO Gray Shambler, I don’t wear a flag pin at church anymore. I just associate it with the wrong kind of chickenhawks anymore. If others want to wear it, that is fine with me as I understand that not everyone feels the way I do, and in fact a lot of people who wear them really do care. However, unlike you, I don’t assume the absence of wearing one means someone doesn’t love or care about their country. That seems to be your assumption. It is absolutely wrong. I know what it is like to work on a dying US soldier in a foreign war zone. To have to call his fiance afterwards and tell her about his death. So f**k you and all you conservative a**holes who judge people for not wearing a stupid pin. If you saw him hating the country, it is because of the hate that colors the way you, and so many conservatives today, see the world.
Bowing before a dictator? George Bush held hands with the same one and Trump did the sword dance with them, declaring his allegiance to them whether or not he knew it.
Steve
Oops, Mia culpa is when Woody Allen blames his ex-wife for his issues; I sincerely meant to blame myself.
@Gustopher, while I am somewhat interested in what non-Americans have to say about America, I will concede to a negative reaction when they mythologize Obama without what I suspect is any more knowledge about him than the Nobel Peace Prize committee did a few months into his Presidency. Foreigners.
But I place most of the problems Dave describes on two things Reid and Pelosi.
@PD, I think you be surprised about the Canadian POV. It’s complicated.
Yes, Canadians do visit the US a lot; more then any other country probably. But it’s a bit distorted, my guess is 90% of the visits is to within 2 hours of both Oceans.
40% of Canadians live within a couple of hours of the industrial Midwest (Southern Ontario) but they are far more familiar with New York City and Florida.
Closeness does not necessarily create objective understanding.
@Curiosonlooker, part of the reason I misattributed newspaper nationality, was the author made a big deal out of traveling thousands of miles this year. Granted that’s more than most Americans would travel in a year, but most Americans don’t profess to claim travel experience as providing special insight into the state of America. I drive thousands of miles each year on family vacations and if he flew, he’s a fraud. One doesn’t discover America or any other country by flying and taking a cab to the Hilton and then a cab to the bookstore near a college campus. My point is that a lot of Europeans don’t get size and terrain issues of the U.S., which Canadian share to a great extent.
Gustopher,
“I look at my views on him (and the views of basically everyone I encounter in my bubble, plus my conservative NY family), and Obama’s skin tone, and conclude that the main objection was racial. How am I wrong?”
There are a few reasons:
– A lot of people had legitimate disagreements with President Obama’s policies. The notion that everything he did was clearly reasonable and therefore the only basis for opposition MUST be skin color is simply not accurate. (It’s also impossible to have a meaningful debate on policy when the person I’m debating believes I must be racist for not agreeing with President Obama – see just about every OTB comment section for the last 8 years.)
– President Obama’s supporters still don’t seem to realize how big a deal the “bitter clingers” speech was along with his general attitude and tone toward that portion American society. Combined with President Obama’s intellectualism and professorial demeanor it came across to many as belittling, lecturing and demeaning.
– Similar to that, different people want Presidents to act differently. People who loved Obama and his rhetorical gifts hated Bush and, especially Trump, for their lack of the same. Others prefer the opposite.
– Obamacare may carry his name, but that law should really be called Reid-and-Pelosi care. President Obama, trying to take a lesson from hillarycare, opted to leave the details to Congress and just provided a broad outline of what he thought would be politically acceptable. So he didn’t pre-compromise with Republicans on this issue and neither did Reid and Pelosi.
Now, with regard to flag pins, I personally don’t like them and have never worn one (I did my public service and never felt the need), but I see why they are important symbolically. A lot of people DO care about them and any candidate running for President should realize their symbolic importance. Choosing NOT to wear one is a decision with political consequences and Obama was (or should have been) smart enough to know the effects. I don’t question his patriotism at all, but it was a dumb move on his part.
“I’ve never understood the “America: Right or Wrong†crowd. America is not perfect, it never has been. ”
The attitude is that Americans should support American even when it isn’t perfect. That America deserves the benefit of the doubt. That the cup is half full. That, whatever the case, America is still a better country than the others and, regardless, it’s the only one we have so we need to continue to support it. It’s like the quip that is sometimes attributed to FDR – He’s a sonuvabitch, but at least he’s our sonuvabitch.
Andy, I accept Gustopher at his word and I believe he’s articulated what many progressives believe. They love America for what it might become and, as he put it, “the good it has done.” Other Americans love it for what it is.
As the Armenian poet put it, “I love my country because it is mine.”
Dave,
I take him at his word as well. In case it wasn’t clear, my comment was intended as analysis, not advocacy.
Andy — there’s a difference between disagreeing with someone’s policies and saying that “The manner in which Mr. Obama’a term of office unfolded demonstrated little or no respect for a majority of the country“ as our esteemed host has. I didn’t agree with most of the policies of George W. Bush, but I didn’t think he had no respect for the majority of the country (Trump, however…). I am baffled as to how Obama engenders such a negative reaction.
The fact that he’s black seems like an obvious answer, given our country’s views on race, so it’s where people on the left go first. He’s also the first urban president in ages (Bush 2 and Clinton were very firmly positioning themselves as good old boys), and the first urban Democratic President since… Kennedy? So I wonder if that is it.
“The bitter clingers†makes sense — I can see that sticking in one’s mind and changing how one views Obama, coloring every comment from there. And Obama continued our many decades old national policy of ignoring rural America’s problems. But, I would judge him on his actions, and he was never the type to kick people while they were down, or try to rub things in. (Clinton, on the other hand, was right about the deplorables, and should have doubled down and released polling data showing the white supremacist support for Trump)
Flag pins — a lot of people are very uncomfortable with an ostentatious display of patriotism. Or religion. I’m of the opinion that if you have to make a big show of it, you probably don’t mean it, and a lot of Americans feel the same way. And the flag pin battles hardened that view on the left, by the way, similar to the bitter clingers comments on the right.
As far as “The attitude is that Americans should support American even when it isn’t perfect.†— I have no idea what that even means. We tortured folks — how do you want a President to respond? We devastated the Native cultures with the founding of our nation — how do you want anyone to respond? Same with slavery, etc. What does it mean to “support†America?
“Bitter clingers” is a perfect example but it’s not an isolated instance. His handling of the Gates incident caused Mr. Obama’s approval rating among whites to go down sharply. The fact that the only major piece of social legislation ever enacted on a straight party-line vote was on his watch is a big problem. It never gained majority support until after he had left office. He also had a very bad habit of talking the U. S. down when overseas. I attributed that to his professorial manner and practice of musing aloud but quite a few people take that much more seriously. That he lost more Supreme Court cases by unanimous votes than any president in history illustrated disdain for the rule of law.
Don’t dismiss what Gray Shambler has to say. He’s explaining the problem to you pretty clearly.
I voted for Obama in 2008 but did not in 2012 because I didn’t think he had earned my vote. In 2008 he ran as a unifier; he governed as a partisan operative.
“His handling of the Gates incident caused Mr. Obama’s approval rating among whites to go down sharply.”
Sure, but he handled it correctly. There just won’t ever be a 60 y/o white guy in a suit getting arrested for trying to get into his own house. The fact is that any criticism of the police would make his ratings go down. The police just shot and killed that unarmed Shaver guy. Guarantee you that any politician who dares to criticize the police over that takes a hit. To be clear, I don’t really se this as racism per se, it is just that conservative white people will defend just about anything that the police do.
Steve
He shouldn’t have involved himself in it at all.
The point is that the various incidents and policies delivered a cumulative message or at least it was taken that way by a significant portion of the population.
Almost nothing the major media report on Trump is “vetted.” It’s an endless stream of anonymous sources producing tabloid gossip, whether it’s on CNN, MSNBC or the New York Times. We hear about Trump’s teeth, Trump’s weight, Trump’s hair, Trump’s diet, Trump’s vocabulary, Trump’s TV watching, Trump’s sleep patterns. MSNBC alone has become a corporate disinformation machine gone from allegation to outright manufacture of falsity.
The elites find Trump disgusting. Well, he is disgusting. But so are they. When MSNBC hires a man fired from a newspaper for letting the CIA edit his work, a man who goes on to explicitly state the Russians have done this, that and the other thing without presenting a scrap of evidence, this is supposed to demonstrate journalistic and professional integrity?
To me, the amazing thing is how forced it all is. So far as I can see the media effort to destroy Trump has had zero effect on public opinion. Trump appears solely responsible for the continuing slide in public opinion toward him. All the major media had to do was cleanly report what was happening and wait while Trump did the work for them.
But they wanted ratings and page views.
Don’t dismiss what Gray Shambler has to say. He’s explaining the problem to you pretty clearly.
He isn’t explaining anything clearly, at least not to me.
I see phrases like “apology tourâ€, “hates his countryâ€, “bowing†and “flag pin†and I write him off as a far right loon reciting aging outrage du jours rather than someone who understands why they think the way they do (a very hard task for anyone, and a task we all fail at on some topics)
Now, partly that’s my fault, for being a bit closed minded. But I would counter that he is not just using the language of the right, but that he is using the linguistic shorthand of the right, where various phrases have a lot more meaning to those in the know than they do to the rest of the world. The result is that I hear what Gray is saying as “I don’t like him because I don’t like himâ€
Is the flag pin more or less meaningful than the use of columns on the stage of the DNC in 2008? I see them both as random things Fox News decided to focus on, because they were looking for something to criticize and came up a bit short that day. Gotta fill those hours though.
So, really, I hear Gray as saying “I don’t like him because I watch Foxâ€