Land of the Free, Home of the Self-Haters

Congratulations, America. We just concluded yet another birthday not in celebration, but in shame.

Forget blowing out the candles. Just let it burn. The sum total of America-bashing movements in recent years are dangerously flammable: the antics of Democratic Socialists and environmental eco-terrorists; the toppling and defacing of statues and public monuments; the denigration of Founding Fathers for the audacity of eschewing political correctness in 1776; the idiocy of defunding the police; the fraud of Black Lives Matter; the deception of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Trump Derangement Syndrome; protests outside the homes of Supreme Court Justices; and pro-Hamas street and campus violence that are as much pretexts for hating America as they are solidarity for Palestinians whose militancy and rejectionism protestors know nothing about.

All these episodes of national self-loathing have taken their toll. We are bruised and battered from within. We once believed in American Exceptionalism; now such declarations are proof-positive of American imperialism, war-mongering, and promiscuous meddling in foreign affairs.

American values were once proudly proclaimed as the embodiment of the Enlightenment, a grand experiment in democracy writ large, envied by everyone, and copied throughout the West. Today moral relativism requires America to keep its mouth shut and atone for its sins. The beacon of its liberty extinguished. Claims of it once being a force for good, debunked.

Self-hatred is the new patriotism.

The New York Times’ “1619 Project” concluded that the topsoil of America was soiled, forever, the very instant colonialists set foot on this continent. The Spanish, British, Dutch, and French only had one thing in mind: enslavement and expropriation. No other purpose for undertaking those treacherous voyages. This has now become the new national narrative—a wholesale discrediting of America and its mythology about a land made free.

The Pulitzer Prize Board awarded the Times its coveted prize in commentary in 2020, knowing full well that America’s leading historians concluded that more than a few of the essay’s claims were utter nonsense. But hating America sells papers these days—the ultimate click-bait among young progressives, especially. Why should the venerable Pulitzers, or the Times, for that matter, be outflanked by TikTok?

A year later the Times, without public notice, altered some of the most indefensible language in “The 1619 Project,” such as the calumny that the Revolution was fought primarily to preserve slavery. Could the whole thing have been merely a work in progress, a test-run in self-flagellation—a mere time-out within the pandemic to spew sewage at the United States?

What is undeniably apparent is a stunning erosion of American patriotism. An all-too-public disdain for the very country for whom a large segment of the world’s “huddled masses” are still “yearning to breathe free.”

Hating America is hip. Flying an American flag outside ones’ home is now seen as both a racist gesture and a direct assault on one’s social calendar. And corporate America is playing along.

Hating America is hip. Flying an American flag outside ones’ home is now seen as both a racist gesture and a direct assault on one’s social calendar. And corporate America is playing along.

For many years after HBO’s record-setting, Emmy Award-winning series, “John Adams,” first aired in 2008, the network replayed all seven episodes throughout the day on July 4—year after year.

Good luck finding it nowadays. Not only was it not aired last week, “John Adams” didn’t even appear on the Max home screen. The show is, apparently, buried much deeper on that streaming service than John Adams, the long-dead second president, is buried in the ground.

I doubt seriously whether Lin-Manuel Miranda would have been able to mount “Hamilton” on Broadway in today’s political climate—even with his multicultural cast, Hamilton’s own immigrant success story, and hip-hop beats stomping all over the classic American songbook.

You might loathe January 6 rioters, and remain gleeful that nearly 800 either pleaded guilty to, or were convicted of, crimes, with nearly half still in prison. But at least many of them were carrying or wearing American flags on the streets of Washington, D.C.—even while rampaging the Capitol. Felons, yes, but many were devout patriots who served in the military or in law enforcement.

By contrast, those who torched police cars and precincts, and looted stores, in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing—and never spent a single night in jail—would have gladly used the Stars and Stripes as kindling for their favorite infernos.

The entire world is convulsing in extreme polarization and moral confusion about origin stories. Nationalistic, right-wing governments are the new rage. French voters turned out in record numbers on Sunday, giving Marine Le Pen’s right-wing party, the National Rally, a stunning victory in the National Assembly.

Not since Vichy has a rightest government led the French people. Its anti-immigrant, anti-crime public pronouncements echo the Republican Party in the United States. With a 12-year-old French Jewish girl raped by a Muslim gang—an October 7 copycat crime if there ever was one—don’t be surprised when polling is finalized to discover that French Jewry, for the very first time, sided with party-leaders who were once apologists for Vichy. That’s how bad it has become for Jews in Sharia-loving Europe, and how dramatically these secular societies have succumbed to Islamist tyranny.

Centrism is dead nearly everywhere, and the fear of terrorism is on high alert. Eight nations within the European Union are now being led by extreme-right wing governments, which include, Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Greece, Sweden and Finland. The Netherlands are knocking on the door with the “Dutch Donald Trump,” Geert Wilders.

Ironically, with right-wing ultranationalism on the rise all throughout Europe, England just turned back Tory rule and installed a Labour Party prime minister for the first time since the days of Tony Blair. Britain has taken a leftward turn while its European counterparts are now ensconced on the far right.

The new prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has two seemingly irreconcilable background notes. He is married to a Jewish woman and together they are raising their sons Jewish, and even honor the Friday night Shabbat ritual. On the other hand, Starmer was a member of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. No reminder of Corbyn’s vile antisemitic public sentiments, and embrace of Hamas, should be necessary. Corbyn’s hatred of Jews and Israel was so malicious, he made Roger Waters appear to be a religious Zionist by comparison.

Starmer has acknowledged the antisemitic rot within his party. He has also pledged to address the wave of violence against British Jews committed by British Muslims.

The problem is that Starmer spent much of his career as a left-wing human rights lawyer, not unlike George Clooney’s wife, Amal. Indeed, that’s what brought him knighthood. Those with such backgrounds tend to browbeat Israel and ignore Palestinian terrorism. They are also predisposed to believing that Jews are privileged white people immune to persecution. A laughable thought for actual Jews.

George has had little effect on his wife. Let’s see how the new Lady at 10 Downing Street manages with her spouse.

Meanwhile, as the disease of national-hatreds spread throughout the West, which country will reclaim its collective self-esteem? I wish I could say America.

Our soul searching moment has arrived.

Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is the legal analyst for CBS News Radio. His most recent book is titled “Saving Free Speech … From Itself,” and his forthcoming book is titled, “Beyond Proportionality: Is Israel Fighting a Just War in Gaza?”