America Is Just An Idea

Really?

“People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home.”

-JD Vance

The pernicious concept of America as simply a collection of ideas written down has gained more traction, with this definition of the nation receiving an increasingly spirited defense from pundits and liberal historians since the beginning of the 21st century. From the 1619 Project, to the notion that the American founders studied the Koran to gain insights into how to run the country, there seems to be no end to the nonsense that denies America’s roots in Anglo-Saxon heritage and traditions.

The latest example is from Canadian-American dual citizen columnist David Brooks with his NYT essay “I’m Normally a Mild Guy. Here’s What’s Pushed Me Over the Edge,” and he wants you to know how mad he is.

Brooks uses the recent observation of Memorial Day as an opportunity to voice his outrage over Vice President Vance expressing the belief that America is more than a nebulous collection of ideas, entirely separate from her ancestral heritage.

As with many in Conservative Inc., Brooks uses faux-outrage in the guise of defending patriotism for this bromide. He begins by taking issue with a 2009 essay from political scientist Patrick Deneen, stating:

“In that essay, Deneen argued that soldiers aren’t motivated to risk their lives in combat by their ideals. He wrote, “They die not for abstractions — ideas, ideals, natural right, the American way of life, rights, or even their fellow citizens — so much as they are willing to brave all for the men and women of their unit.”

He goes on to declare that most soldiers are driven in combat by a sense of ideals, holding up the historical conflicts of World War Two and The American Civil War as proof. Although, as if by convenience, he dismisses Vietnam and the Iraq War due to their moral causes being unclear. This selective cherry-picking of past warfare allows Brooks to opine nostalgia on the glory of the Union, citing historian James M. McPherson’s book “For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War,” with excerpts of Union officers writing home about the righteousness of the cause. In one letter, a soldier from Indiana writes:

“Remember that thousands went forth and poured out their life’s blood in the Revolution to establish this government; and twould be a disgrace to the whole American people if she had not noble sons enough who had the spirit of ’76 in their hearts.”

Perhaps due to his Canadian heritage or willful ignorance, Brooks does not acknowledge how both sides, Union, and Confederate, were full of descendants from the American Revolutionary War. Thus, proving how intertwined the tapestry of shared heritage truly was during the horrific conflict. These men did fight for ideals they believed in, with many fighting and dying on the very soil that held generations of who had come before them. WWII only gets a passing mention, as if careful not to pry open the pandora’s box of modern revisions occurring on why it was fought. The only reason to use these Civil War examples is so that Brooks can smugly say that Deneen and Vance’s comments “stain the memory of the men who fought in that war, especially the men who fought to preserve the union.”

All of this is merely a build up for what he wants to critique, and he quickly pivots to the real issue he has with the dangerous idea of America being more than, well, an idea.

He points to what he calls “Aspirational Nationalism,” with former presidents Lincoln, Reagan, and even Joe Biden as examples of those who professed that America exists to spread the gospel of the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address. This he contrasts with “Homeland Nationalism – which as he says pithily, is “The belief that America is just another collection of people whose job is to take care of our own.”

He takes a special umbrage with President Trump’s recent visit to the Middle East and him stating that they have the right to run their countries as they see fit. For Brooks, the greatest endeavor the US can undertake is to scour the world, sprinkling democracy at the barrel of a gun and leaving a rainbow flag planted behind. That is not merely my impression of the essay. He plainly states that as an idea “Americans have a responsibility to promote democracy,” and that our sacred oath is to not “betray a democratic Ukraine.”

Brooks waxes on with geographical empathy over continents far from the American homeland:

“What Deneen and Vance said about men in combat is a manifestation of tribal morality. They take a sentiment that is noble in time of war — we take care of our own — and apply it in general to mean that we don’t have to take care of the starving children in Africa; we can be cruel to those we don’t like. Trumpism is a giant effort to narrow the circle of concern to people just like us.”

He goes on:

“But over the past four months, a small cabal at the top of the administration — including Trump, Vance, Miller and the O.M.B. director, Russell Vought — have brought a series of moral degradations to the nation those Union soldiers fought and died for: the betrayal of Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine, the cruel destruction of so many scientists’ life projects, the ruination of PEPFAR. According to the H.I.V. Modeling Consortium’s PEPFAR Impact Tracker, the cuts to that program alone have already resulted in nearly 55,000 adult deaths and nearly 6,000 dead children. We’re only four months in.”

What is more cruel, neglect the suffering of one’s neighbor, or practicing global virtue-signaling? The PEPFAR and other USAID funding cuts is emotional blackmail dressed up as concern by Brooks. His entire article uses patriotism as a veneer to hide the argument that, to him and other global cosmopolitans, America can be filled with anyone and remain the same.

That is not the case.

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America is more than a faceless idea. It is a nation of people with a shared heritage and culture created by European settlers, conquerors, and pioneers. The ideas put down on paper are good, but only a distinct people made them great.

America is more than a piece of paper.

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-Arthur