My Thoughts on Americanism

I recently came across this political cartoon drawn by Thomas Nast for Harper’s Weekly in 1869 entitled Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner. It shows Uncle Sam, the personification of America, hosting a traditional thanksgiving dinner for a table full of diverse guests ranging from Black Americans to Indigenous Americans to Irish Americans. Americans of all races, genders, ages, and ethnic groups are sat, as equals, around a table enjoying the fruits of the beautiful land they call home. On the wall are portraits of Abe Lincoln, George Washington, and Ulysses S. Grant. Three Americans who fought and bled to advance American values. Washington is in the middle of the two and flanked by statues of Lady Justice and Lady Liberty. Also at the table is Columbia, a female personification of America, conversing with a Chinese American and his family and sitting next to a Black American family.

The era this cartoon came out in was defined by questions of what America was and who could be an American. The three men whose paintings hang on the wall each contributed something to what makes America unique and great. George Washington led the country during the Revolution and after it as our first president. His most important contribution, in my opinion, is him defining the role of the president and, most importantly, stepping down from power and letting the people (at least those who could vote at the time) decide who the next leader will be.

Abraham Lincoln stitched our country together and saw us through the brutal civil war. In addition to this, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation which, while not freeing every slave, made the abolition of the institution of slavery a primary war goal of the Union Army. The US flag, the soldiers of all races who fought under it, made people free. In addition, Lincoln fought hard for the 13th Amendment which completed the abolition of the institution of slavery. Sadly, for his support of black voting rights, Lincoln was killed by an assassin. Ulysses S. Grant ensured the rights of the freedmen and women during his term as president by using the federal government to enforce the 14th and 15th amendments. This led to the first black voters and politicians and empowered black leaders throughout the nation.

Who We Are

So what does this all mean? Well it means that I started thinking about what America means, where it came from, what it represents, and what it can do. I want to talk about classic American values and how they are responsible for building our nation and shared experience. Unlike that nations of Europe, Africa, and Asia, the US had to basically invent a national identity from scratch. The old world nations built their nationality over literal millennia of evolution but the US was brand new.

The way our nationality was established is pretty ingenious I would say. First, our nation is built on an idea instead of a specific group. A few ideas actually, republicanism, human rights, liberty, consent of the governed, innovation, meritocracy, and other Enlightenment era ideals. These things are the base of the United States. They form the absolute core of who we are, not race or religion or ethnicity, ideas. Our entire nation is based on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This enabled something truly remarkable that had never really been seen in history before, a nation of nations.

In the next 200 years, immigrants from all over the planet would flock to the US in an attempt to fulfill their dreams. Think about that, a nation where whoever you were you could come here and live your life how you want to live it, free of any influence from kings or endlessly bickering governments and religious institutions. Each of these groups from the Chinese to the Irish to the Jews contributed something to our national culture, in addition to the groups that were already here when the nation was founded such as black Americans and indigenous Americans. They all made this place better and they all fought hard to make this place their own. That is the basis of our nation. It is not so much a traditional nation, it is a set of ideas and contributions from all over the Earth.

What We Have Done

American history to me is a story of endless progress. Social progress, scientific progress, political progress, and economic progress. The Revolution was insanely impactful in human history as it birthed the first nation based entirely around the Enlightenment. It was inherently progressive as it showed that things do not need to be static, monarchies could fall and they SHOULD fall. However, as progressive as our nations birth might be, the ideals of the Revolution to many Americans were nothing more than a joke. Already by the time of the Revolution, American society was built on stolen land and with stolen labor. Enslaved Africans had been in the colonies for over a hundred years. They were ripped from their homes and them and their children were forced to work for the benefit of rich, white, men. When they were eventually freed from their chains in the midst of the Civil War they were forced into being second class citizens, and through legal loopholes, many black Americans were forced back into what was essentially neoslavery as debt peons and leased convicts.

They were deprived of their rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But, as history shows, they were the ones who would fight, bleed, and die to make America’s promises and ideas a reality. Little by little throughout the ages, Black leaders would force our country to change and progress into the future. People like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman fought to end slavery and fought to ensure the rights of the newly freedmen and freedwomen were protected in the 19th century. They are the patriots who like, like their nation’s founding fathers, forced our world to change.

In the 20th century, black Americans faced segregation through supposed “separate but equal” facilities in the south. Black Americans were often lynched throughout the nation for usually no reason at all. But this did not stop brave black men and women who would speak out through the oncoming decades. These patriots would again embody the spirit of the Revolution and move our nation forward and bring it’s ideals that much closer to reality. Leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., who was instrumental in ending legal segregation and bringing the all too often denied right to vote to millions of Americans. Or Ida B. Wells who used her voice to speak out and educate millions of people about the horrors of lynching down south and would later fight to enfranchise American women. Black Americans historically have been the biggest believers in America. I would say that they have and continue to uphold the legacy of the Revolution. Our Revolution, our history is ongoing and American progress continues to march forward.

As the US marched across the continent, tons of shameful acts and genocidal events took place across the continent. There were already people living in the land that Americans were now claiming and settling in. Indigenous Americans were the original people of this land, they had been here for tens of thousands of years. European colonization led to mass death among their population on a scale that has not yet been matched. The United State's expansion west brought it into conflict with the tribes that already lived their. Massacre after Massacre, from Sand Creek to Wounded Knee, the US Army murdered hundreds of innocent native Americans in what can only be described as genocide. Many indigenous fought back hard against the encroach of the US on their lands. Leaders such as Geronimo, who fought for his people’s right to live as they want to live in the 1870s and 1880s, or Crazy Horse, who led his tribe to victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn over encroaching US forces. These men fought for their people’s right to live their lives how they see fit, they also fought to defend their land that had been with them for generations. Even though they would never claim any allegiance to the US government, I would consider them patriots and upholders of American values. The US government is never the end all be all paragon of Americanism, the people are. This was their land, and it was stolen from them, but not without a fight.

These examples are only barely even beginning to scratch the surface of the history of American progress. Our values and spirit of Revolution and change spawned countless movements for progress. Such as the suffragettes, women who fought for decades for the right to vote. They would be the inspiration for the later waves of feminism in the 20th and 21st centuries, leading women to a status never before enjoyed in human history. Or the long and storied history of the American labor movement, who fought and very often died for things we take for granted for today such as weekends, 8 hour shifts, and minimum wages. Each of these groups and many others I have not spoken of such as advocates for the disabled and for the rights of immigrants advanced the American Revolution and pushed our nation forward, and they continue to do so today. America simply is progressive at the core level. I absolutely will go into more detail into the many progressive aspects of American history.

Where We Can Go

As a Gen Z American born in 2003, I was brought up learning all the traditional aspects of American history. Columbus, Pilgrims, Revolution, Slavery, Civil War, World War 2, and Civil Rights. I was not aware of it then but I was being deprived of important knowledge of the rest of American history. I did not consider that I was not being told everything, they taught me all the patriotic songs, we all said the pledge of allegiance every morning, and than we grew up. I feel like Gen Z has increasingly grown cynical and bitter toward their country as they have begun more and more aware, some may say “hyper-aware” of our nation’s shortcomings and many wrongdoings. This is, in many ways, good! As we are finally coming to grips with the tragic history of minorities and oppression in our so called land of the free. But I do think that we are missing a crucial part of the puzzle. America is so much more than our shortcomings. Our country was born in progress and our fellow citizens have fought hard to make sure that progress progresses.

Our history is the story of brave patriots who, filled with a love for their fellow humans, advance our society forward and use their minds to make the world a better place. Our nation’s origin point is in making the world a better place. Our constitution charges us, the people, with forming a more perfect union. It says we need to keep going forward. That’s what America is, if we don’t progress, if we don’t perfect, we will no longer be America according to the constitution.

It is more than clear to me that Americans have been loosing faith in their nation since the 1970s with what President Carter called a “crisis of confidence”. Indeed, since then and especially since the 2000s with the War on Terror and the Great Recession, Americans feel as if life is harder than before, especially younger Americans. It is harder for us to find homes, it is harder for us to get a good education or a good job, and the American dream is growing increasingly out of reach. Institutional racism against Americans of color, income inequality, corruption in our government, mass violence, pandemics, and just this general sense of fear, anger, and despair permeate our national ethos I feel.

But it does not have to be like this. Gen Z needs to uphold the legacy of America, of patriotic protest and of moving things forward. Right now multiple groups are vying for our political capital. You see the fascistic anti-American MAGA movement appealing to so many Gen Z men with it’s promise of power and more importantly with it’s list of enemies to hate that openly wants to destroy America. You see leftist extremists taking advantage of our good nature to get us to spread antisemitic lies while hate crimes against Jews are becoming ever more common. It is hard to form political opinions free of bigotry and vitriol in this day and age.

But that doesn't mean that Gen Z doesn’t care. One of the most heartwarming political movements of our age, and what I believe to be the civil rights issue of our time is the LGBTQ+ movement. It all started in New York City at the Stonewall Inn, where brave patriots fought back against a homophobic police force that was raiding the prominent gay bar. This sparked the modern gay rights movement, a movement that would later encompass all sorts of different gender and sexual identities. This is yet another example of American progressive patriotism at work. Queer folks and their allies are fighting hard to bring queer people to equality. This is especially poignant since at this time, queer and especially trans rights are under attack in multiple states. This is our time to bring our nation forward. This what America should be, we should be the shining example to the world of a nation built on the idea of human rights, democracy, equality before the law, and innovation.

Where We Can Go

I am writing this on November 15th, 2024. As of now, former president Donald Trump is the president elect and will assume office next year. The results of this election shocked me deeply. I really, truly, had faith that the American people would chose a qualified candidate who wants to take America forward instead of trying to take it back. My confidence in this country has taken a huge hit. For a bit I did not know if I even wanted to finish this. But I stand by what I said, I believe in America. I believe in our values and our dreams.

Donald Trump is without a doubt the most anti-American president in our history (except for perhaps John Tyler). He constantly plays on our sins and our demons and uses them to gain power. He wants to use America as a personal piggy bank to pay off his debts and get out of jail. He is staffing his administration with people who will do what he wants. He represents the greatest threat to our democracy and to Americanism in, at the very least, my lifetime.

But why was he reelected? I believe that one of the prime reasons of that is the re-emergence of what President Carter called in his famous Malaise speech, “a crisis of confidence”. With Watergate, Vietnam, the Pentagon Papers, the many crises of the 70s, Americans were losing faith in their government, their economy, and honestly themselves. I believe that we are in a second crisis of confidence. The great recession, the war on terror, and the COVID-19 pandemic have drastically weakened our national sense of self. Our economy is strong, stronger than other post COVID economies, but that’s not the way Americans are seeing it. We are seeing our country as people who are sick of our politicians, even if they are doing a good job, sick of our economy, even if on paper it is doing well, and sick of the current state of our country. My generation is growing up in an America that they are not proud of, we looked for change and, for some ungodly reason, we chose to reelect Donald Trump. A (slight) majority of Americans chose him, a man who inspires misogyny, racism, hatred and bigotry of all kinds to lead us. Too many Americans wanted a strongman wannabe dictator than a qualified woman to lead us.

What we need is something to unite us. Something to give us hope for our future. Something to redefine us as a nation in the 21st century. I believe that we need a new form of Americanism. An ideology based around what we hold dear. Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness, Equality, Prosperity, Federalism, the Four Freedoms, and Representative Democracy of, by, and for the people. We, in the 21st century, need to promote these values and spread them here and abroad. These values unite all of us as a people, we are not a traditional nation united by common culture or common faith or common language. We are united by common ideas. We absolutely NEED to keep these ideals strong. Donald Trump is a threat to them, he preys on our prejudices and sins. We need someone who uses the better angels of our nature to push our civilization forward.

That cartoon from the start is a centuries old snapshot of what our nation can be. Trump’s reelection is a setback but it is NOT the end. That snapshot could very well be our future. We have choices to make now about our future. Democracy or tyranny, Liberty or slavery, Right or wrong. We fumbled this election. Let’s not fumble the next one. We need to learn. Learn our history, learn our present, learn about the issues that affect us, learn about the values I mentioned earlier, we also need to expand them. America needs to keep going, we need to keep going towards the more perfect union. The next few years will be difficult, we need to support our LGBTQ friends as well as our POC friends and our immigrant friends. Things are going to get much harder for them. We need to reject the hatred of them that is tearing our nation apart. This culture war against a more perfect union needs to end if we want to go forward. But we are NOT going back. This thanksgiving, I am thankful for what I have. I pray that providence will provide our people with the strength they need to keep going and to push our union forward. Americanism needs to grow, it’s ideals need to spread and be fully realized. Our nation needs to find itself in it’s ideals and dedicate itself to those ideals. God bless America and happy Thanksgiving!!

Cuautle, Angelirene, Penelope Day, Jalyn Jones-Brown, and Sadie Berk. “‘Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner’: Thomas Nast’s Powerful Exploration of Composite Nationality | The New York Historical.” The New York Historical, August 24, 2023. https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/uncle-sams-thanksgiving-dinner-thomas-nasts-powerful.

Sullivan, Jake. “What Donald Trump and Dick Cheney Got Wrong About America.” The Atlantic, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190116184559/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/yes-america-can-still-lead-the-world/576427/