Is It Okay to Be Patriotic?

You could make this place America the Beautiful.

So how was your Fourth of July? Wait, wait – don’t tell me: I saw it on Instagram.

While it seems that all of you were picnicking and lighting roman candles and scouting the perfect red barn or clapboard house to position in your viewfinder for that perfect (if banal) shot, I stayed in the city and waited for the humidity to reach levels that would have made it even remotely pleasurable to run outdoors (this never happened, by the way). But that did give me PLENTY of time to take a different temperature: where we seem to be in terms of acknowledging the Fourth of July, which is indubitably the most American of American holidays – so filled with flags and abundance and totems of freedom, liberty and all that jazz that to acknowledge it at all now seems to suggest at least a teeny bit of endorsement for the things America [says it] stands for. I mean, it’s not not putting you in a Venn diagram with the America Firsters and “These Colors Don’t Run”ners — even if only for 24 hours.

While it’s hard to imagine anything as grim as July 4th’s popularity dip six weeks following the murder of George Floyd, I was curious to see how it might be received and refracted a week after an even more dramatically timed and explicitly political SCOTUS ruling. Remarkably, FOJ’s reputation didn’t seem to take much of a hit this year – the imagery and the “celebrating independence” talk was mostly back up and running. So in 2024, Is It Okay to be (even a little) Patriotic?

Paul Fusco’s image shot from RFK’s funeral train, June 8, 1968.

Every national holiday is more than a day off; more than a beginning or end of a season. In addition to timing out roughly 10 bonus days a year that most of us desperately crave in a culture of just 2 weeks paid vacation, they’re also propagandistic: they bear the values and self-conception of the people who are called to celebrate them. Each one recalls what the country’s struggles have been or perhaps who its heroes are, and inside of that acknowledgement, we are supposed to find a story of who we are.

This definition alone already sounds like the ingredients for a conversational incendiary device, right? Columbus Day already feels like it has been “out” longer than it was “in”; Indigenous People’s Day seemed like it might be on track to replace it, but it to some, eliminating the day off felt like a more effective repudiation of the earlier message. The Thanksgiving story is now wildly different than the one you remember from your school days, and Christmas is likely to be treated more as a secular observance – a festival – so that everyone can participate. You’d think that MLK would be a nice place to for us all to meet, but I have to say that at this point, I mostly roll my eyes the flurry of “hate is too much to bear” and “only the light can do that” Instagram posts – to me, they’re about as original (and heartfelt) as a picture of your ice cream cone held aloft or a “candid” of a girl with a coffee cup on the steps of someone else’s West Village townhouse. While no one is asking my opinion, if they were, I would say that on that day, it’s perfectly acceptable to remember Dr. King by not posting. He’ll never know, I promise.

But then there’s Fourth of July, where you kind of can’t get away from the Big US Energy no matter what you do; whether you’re a stan or a hater, pro or con. I don’t know about you, but for the last few days, every time I consulted my feed, I found myself wondering if a post featuring Robert Mapplethorpe’s American Flag was meant to be sentimental or ironic, or if the person chronicling their fabulous time in a place with an Old Glory bedizened Main Street is ignorant or smug. Is it really appropriate for activist types to pose in front of the Stars and Stripes, I asked aloud (to no one), or maybe a sign of progress that some people are letting themselves enjoy a red and blue fruit-adorned cheesecake without worrying about causing offense?

First, let me say that I’m not proud of how quickly an image from someone’s Instagram turns me into a forensic profiler, or how good I think I am at the job. A picture may still be worth a thousand words, but as we should know by now, there’s nearly always danger ahead when the lion’s share is taken up by the ones we put in the mouths of others. But it’s more than that. The politics of “no compromise” and a market that tells us that the perfect, tailor-made commodity is out there as long as we keep scrolling, swiping and liking has nurtured many bad ideas, including the one that to (mostly) love your country makes you a kook or a “sociopath,” and that to criticize it makes you an enemy of the state.   I’m certainly not the first to say it, but I think we’re becoming increasingly hemmed in by our resistance to letting complex ideas settle – and even co-exist – before we react or attempt to eradicate them.

The “USA! USA!” types are perhaps beyond rehabilitation, but I want to offer the disillusioned the idea that there is a “love of country” available to them that is similar to real love relationships: resolute without being blind. Durable because it’s tough. And to the overly solicitous – to the ones who have told themselves that what makes America “great” is what’s missing, or that we only have to stay positive and dial back our conviction so that we can “all get along,” that the problem is that “opinions are too strong” – I hope you will consider that we suffer as much at the hands of loved ones who tell us we’re right when we are clearly not as by those who will never forgive us our mistakes. We need boundaries. We crave notes. In eulogizing his brother Robert in 1968, Ted Kennedy spoke of the slain Senator’s ability “to dream things that never were and say ‘why not’”? In this vision, I see optimism and critique walking hand-in-hand. As they should.

In a world shaped by machines designed to learn our most minute preferences and catch us before we so much as spell words incorrectly, it may be easy to forget how much is borne of (respectful) tension: we are improved by review, edits, multiple readers and challenges by rivals as well as our intimates. You are not merely forgiven for thinking that your country needs work – it is expected of you. Though it may feel like a burden at times – boy, does it ever – this need not disqualify your allegiance, it can burnish it. Nothing perfect is forged by the chronically satisfied; Patriotism need not be defined by the acceptance — it can be in the pursuit.

If your days off were untroubled by consideration of any of these things, I actually think you might have been the best citizen of all. Social media and media in general is at peak crazy-making right now, am I right? If you haven’t already, this is a great time to start engaging boundaries (that word again) and some self-allegiance, to your own serenity: hopefully 2 bonus days off with family and friends and/or doing things that require you put down your phone were good practice. Though it is not the time to ignore politics (this has been abundantly clear to me on 90-degree day after 90-degree day — CLIMATE IS ON THE TICKET, GUYS) but we cannot allow our sanity to be wrested from us by the belief that the constant stream of information and opinion gives us control. That’s the flag I’ll be waving today and for the foreseeable future and I’d love for you to join the party. Peace be with you.