One Nation, Underdog

The contradictions of patriotism

I am an immigrant. Born in Montreal, moved to Princeton in 1975. When I turned 18 I was offered dual citizenship and renounced it. “I’m American", I said, “and if I need to go to war, I will”. I was deeply in love with this country, its myths, heroes and pageantry.

But today, on the quarter-millennium, ruled by a president who personally profited $2.5B in his first year in office, it’s time to look at what we really are and decide if this is the beginning of the end of America or the end of the beginning.

Let’s start in 1976. Newly transplanted, I remember a similarly scorching summer. Good Humor trucks circulated, music playing and I’d beg my parents for a red, white and blue Firecracker patriotic popsicle. Grownups dressed in colonial garb - I remember the smell of gunpowder as I watched older kids shooting off bottle rockets. I was too young to realize that the same country that didn’t mind selling teenagers fireworks has just ended a war where they sent teenagers to die in Vietnam. This wasn’t really new - it was one of the devil’s bargains the country rested on. The tree of liberty really is watered with the blood of patriots.

The movie of the year was Rocky, something so epic as to be unbelievable. On the bi-centenial, a story about an Italian loser given a final shot by the black heavyweight champion, Apollo Creed. Creed subverts the power structure and masterminds what white, racist fans will root for.

He enters the arena dressed as George Washington, carried in a boat as if crossing the Delaware before dancing into the ring wearing shorts covered in the stars and stripes. Rocky, a washed up Philadelphian club fighter, shocks the world by going the distance, losing on points. Here it is, our entire national myth, wrapped up neatly and ready for sequels. I loved it and my Dad installed a speed bag on our back porch for me to dance, punch and imagine myself vanquishing aggressors, the ultimate underdog.

America’s greatest achievements are wrapped up in its greatest failures. Our founding document is based on equality under God and the law. The Declaration of Independence reads proudly today until one realizes it had an indictment of slavery intentionally removed from it. In our national history, slavery overrides everything, it is our poison chalice, lasting 246 years.

Our most tragic moment, the Civil War, resulted in the 13th Amendment. Lest we take any pride in that, remember that it took another 100 years to reach to Civil Rights. The single greatest feat, entering WW2 to defeat Hitler and the Japanese, is told with images of GI’s liberating Auschwitz. In reality, FDR and Cordell Hull turned away all boats bearing Holocaust refugees and entered the war because of Pearl Harbor.

But the point is not our tarnished virtue. Our point is Rocky, our embrace of the immigrant and the social mobility we promise. America valorizes the underdog - whether that’s an Austrian bodybuilder governing California or the son of a Kenyan taking the White House. No other country embraces flexibility of class or status the way we do. 125 foreign-born Billionaires live here, 93% self-made. We are a nation of immigrants, underdogs and outsiders. Forgetting this dooms us to a failed formula.

Think about it. Trump was born rich, handed assets and cheated the system at every turn, his tenet being to block the immigrants that form our identity. He’s desperately clung to the media figures embraced by Americans, whether it’s the UFC, Dr. Phil or Hulk Hogan. More and more, we’ve tolerated imperialism, factionalism and a worship of the rich.

The other thing that’s always defined America is our embrace of reinvention. In my town, the Nassau Inn has a 250 year old tavern called the Yankee Doodle Tap Room. Behind the bar is a 13 foot painting by Norman Rockwell that illustrates the myth and the song. The “Yankee Doodle” is a young American colonist riding past the monarchists on an undersized horse. They jeer at him but he smiles. He’s the underdog wearing the insult as a badge - uniquely American, like Bugs Bunny and Rocky, strange, electric with a huge heart and outsized dreams.

So let’s call this day the end of the beginning. A quarter millennium of talent, guts and dreams. Our president is a moron but he’s president because more than half of us chose him. Maybe it’s time to talk to those you disagree with.

We all share this myth, a preference for guts and hard work over inherited riches. Our country is great at creating opportunity and wealth. Unfortunately, it accrues upward and more than any time in our history, most belongs to a very few. That is not American. It’s going to take some committed underdogs, to right the ship.

So have some drinks, burn something on the grill, shout at the fireworks and then, get to work. With an-all volunteer army, we’ve been lulled into believing that the worst impact of poor leadership and removal from our ideology is just more outrage. I’ll leave you with Bruce Springsteen covering a folk song from the early 18th century. Everything always comes down to young people paying the price for entitled leaders, Kings, Billionaires and Presidents.

Happy Independence Day, Fellow Travelers.