Thursday night, Sarah Palin addressed a rally after the vice presidential debate. At one point during the rally she led the crowd in a chant of “USA, USA, USA.” As she turned from one side to the other, gesturing to the eager crowd with her hands, they responded in unison with a deep collective boom. “USA, USA, USA.” She stepped back from the platform, closed her eyes and continued to chant, as if in prayer. As I watched the ensuing commentary in CNN and MSNBC I was struck by how these shenanigans weren’t talked about. The so called “liberal media” was silent on the subject of masses of people spontaneously breaking out in fits of jingoism.
Overtly patriotic gestures are accepted emblems in American culture utilized by all manner of citizens: be it politicians, pep-rally leaders or professional sports stars. Soccer fans cheer at the World Cup when America scores. People place their hand on their heart when the national anthem is sung. Patriotism is expressed by Democrats and Republicans alike, neither wanting the other to be seen as monopolizing it. Both the Democrat and Republican national conventions this summer were coated in American flags. Both milked military heroism for all that it was worth (often demeaning it in the process).
As a European, I find it all quite strange -and a little alarming.
This sort of thing - like chanting "USA, USA" - is anathema to most Europeans- within the party-political sphere at least. Perhaps we think we’re above it or that it cheapens patriotism somehow. Perhaps it is because the names of European nations are not phonetically viable for such antics. There’s not a lot you can do with “Czech Republic”, “Switzerland” or “Republic of Ireland” (“R.O.I., R.O.I. or EU, EU don’t have the same ring to them as “USA, USA”). But there’s something else as well: something that runs deeper than linguistic feasibility or cultural snobbery.
In early 1992, UK pollsters indicated that the British Labour party was set to win its first election in a decade. A week before voting, they held a mass rally in Sheffield in the north of England. (The first, and last, of its kind in modern British history). 10,000 grassroots assembled, sang patriotic songs, listened to celebrity partisans and went home feeling very smug. The following week, Labour lost the election.
Why?
The electorate were unnerved by the sight of so many people in one place, convulsing in unison behind jocular politicians. To “middle England.” - the British equivalent of “small town America” or Germany's “mittelsand.” - it smacked of demagogy
It’s not that Europeans are unfamiliar with masses of people chanting in admiration of their country. It’s that they're too familiar with it. The memories of populist authoritarian regimes on either side of the political spectrum haunt the European memory. This goes beyond Hitler and Stalin. The 20th Century saw a plethora of actions and prejudices authorized by European populists. The Ustase in Croatia, Franco’s Spain, Milosevic’s Serbia spring instantly to mind. Europeans aren’t unpatriotic. Not at all. But built into the European mind is a profound and subterranean suspicion of overt enthusiasm for one’s home country - especially when it comes to political leadership.
It is for this reason that most European constitutions have a thoroughly emasculated presidency. In France, Italy and Poland, the president is a mostly ceremonial figure with executive power invested in the ruling (usually unstable) legislative coalition. This means that the nation’s head of state, always one of the focal points of patriotism, has little executive opportunity to translate national pride into political capital.
The Queen of England is a brilliant example of this. She is adored by many and respected by most. She opens legislative sessions, shakes hands with foreign dignitaries and gives a televised Christmas message. In 2002 over a million people lined the streets, waving flags and clapping hands to celebrate the Silver Jubilee - 50 years of her reign on the throne. But none of this popularity (or “authority”) can be channeled into concrete action. That is the joy of a toothless head of state. They are bulwarks against patriotism as well as cultivators of it.
There is something I find creepy about seeing elected officials and presidential candidates cultivating the deep boom of the masses in nationalistic mantras. Such mantras need no qualification, no thought, no nuance and most importantly, no humility. They require only guttural emotion. But such passions have been consistently channeled behind the rash and regrettable in history. Elected officials should leave this sort of thing to cheerleaders and second-hand car salesmen.
They should instead seek to cultivate consensus among voters by assuming the intelligence of Americans, appealing to them with reasoned arguments and honest expectations. America is too vast and diverse to share a collective ego that can be massaged by those with silver tongues.
Furthermore we cannot simply shrug our shoulders and concede “that’s American politics.” To do so is to assume Americans are not clever enough to think intelligently about complex issues. I refuse to believe that we must trust politicians (who are “like us”) to decide our fate while we all content ourselves with chants of “USA, USA.”
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Ben Wright is from England and lives in El Paso.
