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Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio says:

“This race is not your traditional race… It is a referendum on our identity. This race forces us to answer a very simple question: Do we want our country to continue to be exceptional, or are we prepared for it to become just like everybody else?”

For Rubio, of course, American Exceptionalism means much emphasis on economic freedom and laissez-faire Capitalism. This is what he says the Democrats are trying to take away.

But wait a moment. According to the Conservative Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, the U.S. is not the most economically free country in the world, and haven’t been since at least 1995, when the index was started. That honor goes to Hong Kong.

This is where the materialism ends and the nationalism begins. With the Republicans, it is not merely a matter of allowing the materialistic interests of money to triumph; it is also a fervent belief in the God-given superiority of America to all other nations. They are not completely devoted to economic freedom; if they were, the cry would be: “let us be more like Hong Kong”, not “let us remain exceptional”.

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[NOTE: This post is sort of a follow-up to this one.]

There are two competing strains that run through the Republican party–they are sometimes called “fiscal conservatism” and “social conservatism”, “Christianity” and “Libertarianism”. I prefer to use the terms “materialism” and “nationalism”.

The nationalist strain, which is the one most people call socially conservative, sees America as declining, thanks largely to the decadent liberals who do not strive to preserve its greatness and who dissolve its culture. They believe the U.S. is, by Divine Providence, the greatest on the Earth, and it is their darkest fear that the godless liberals will bring it down into merely “another country”.

The nationalist strain seeks a return to national greatness, which they believe existed from roughly 1776 until the early 1900s. It was at that point, they seem to believe, that liberal decadence first emerged, though it only became really obvious in the 1960s, with the counterculture and anti-war movement.

The nationalist wish for national greatness means restoring the old institutions and social norms. They also wish to increase the role of Christianity in the country. (As an aside, it is fitting that one of the most beloved figures among the nationalists is the Mormon radio personality Glenn Beck. Mormonism neatly ties American nationalism in with Christian religious texts.)

Materialism, meanwhile, is more like what we call Libertarianism or even Objectivism. The materialistic world view cares little for the nation except insofar as it is able to enrich the individual. Materialism has no interest in social issues or the Religion in the country except as to how it relates to their profits.

These two strains coexist, ultimately, within each individual member of the Republican party. Oh, there are some who believe almost exclusively in nationalism, such as Pat Buchanan followers, and some who are purely materialist, such as Ayn Rand followers. But more often, a Republican will lean nationalist on one issue and materialist on another.

What are we to make of the Tea Party, then? It is, in my view, a movement whose rank-and-file members are largely motivated by a nationalist outlook, but primarily funded by behind-the-scenes materialists.

Now, this is in fact the same situation which has existed in the Republican party for decades. As such, it seems clear that the Tea Party is not a third party, as some think, but rather a rebranding of the Republican party.

These two strains are currently united against Democrats, but will probably come into conflict if they achieve victory in this year’s midterm elections. What remains to be seen is which force will prove stronger.

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“Modern liberal intellectuals have had a notoriously difficult time coming up with a decent account of patriotism even when they have felt it…. they have proclaimed their allegiance to a hypothetical, pure country that is coming into being rather than to the one they inhabit.”–Richard Lowry & Ramesh Ponnuru, “An Exceptional Debate”.

Comes the obvious response: “Conservatives proclaim their allegiance to a mythical, pure country they claim formerly existed rather than to the one they inhabit.” This response, both to Conservatives in general and to Lowry and Ponnuru in particular, has been said many times.

Both of these ideas, of course, may correctly be called “Utopianism”; a dangerous mindset. I suspect this is what people mean when they espouse the idea that Republicans and Democrats are really the same, and both are equally dangerous to the average person.

This isn’t quite true. The Democrats (Liberals) are more susceptible to the latest political fads and fashions; the Republicans (Conservatives) are much more likely to be unwilling to change from tradition, even if the traditions are meaningless and unhelpful. Still, one can be forgiven for thinking that the two sides are too preoccupied with creating their perfect Dream-Nations that they neglect to carefully consider what the best policies actually are.

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Kathleen Parker has an interesting column discussing politicians’ appeals to “small-town values”, in which she criticizes them–Sarah Palin, in particular–for making it seem as if small towns are superior to cities. She writes: “In the politician’s world, small towns are where “real Americans” live, as opposed to all those other people — the vast majority of Americans — who live in urban areas.”

She then details the feeling of community she experienced living on Olive Street in Washington D.C. She sums up thus: “small-town values have nothing to do with small towns.”

Predictably, the website “Conservatives4Palin” has ridiculed Parker, saying that Palin’s new book has done nothing to criticize those who live in urban areas. The critique of Parker laid out by “Conservatives4Palin” attempts to dodge the real issue; they claim that Parker was merely criticizing Palin’s upcoming book, when in fact she was criticizing Palin’s very worldview. Because Parker was writing not of Palin’s book, but rather of her infamous quote from the 2008 campaign:

If you can’t see the video: Palin said, in part: “We believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call ‘the Real America’.”

Does this not imply that small towns are superior? “The best of America” seems to me to leave little up to interpretation. Of course, this sparked a firestorm of outrage from the Left at the time; and Palin “clarified” (retracted) her remarks.

I am reminded, whenever anyone alludes to this incident or to Palin’s “elitist” bashing in general, of Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West, wherein he draws the distinctions between Culture and Civilization. As the Wikipedia article says:

“He [Spengler] contrasts the “true-type” rural born, with the nomadic, traditionless, irreligious, matter-of-fact, clever, unfruitful, and contemptuous-of-the-countryman city dweller. In the cities he sees only the “mob”, not a people, hostile to the traditions that represent Culture (in Spengler’s view these traditions are: nobility, church, privileges, dynasties, convention in art, and limits on scientific knowledge). City dwellers possess cold intelligence that confounds peasant wisdom, a new-fashioned naturalism in attitudes towards sex which are a return to primitive instincts, and a dying inner religiousness.”

This is no surprise; for Spengler was a Nationalist, albeit a very pessimistic and fatalistic one. The Nationalist always seems to find the people of the countryside preferable to those of the city; and hence it is to be expected that Palin feels the same. She, and the Tea Party, are nationalists through and through, as I have said before.

Parker, on the other hand, is not. Her outlook is rather one of cosmopolitanism, (which is Greek, literally, for “Universal City”) the opposite of Nationalism. And thus Palin’s words hold no meaning for her. Nationalists and Cosmopolitans cannot understand one another even when they speak the same language.

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As I have said, smart people often fall into the trap of believing this. But it is not true: for many terrible things were done in the name of communism; but communism was an explicitly internationalist movement. Fascism is an explicitly nationalist movement.

It is worth pointing out that during the Nazi’s rise to power, they fought against the communists. Fascism and communism are both cruel, but they are very different in terms of their core philosophy and assumptions.

This is why I have such sympathy for the libertarians; their philosophy serves as a safeguard against the evils of both nationalist fascism and internationalist communism.

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Private Buffoon asks it:

“Fellow-students: a Palestinian, an Iraeli, several Indians, a Pakistani… more than one evangelical Christian. We managed to get along just fine, even collaborating on homework!

Department parties were potential opportunities for World War III, but everyone attended, and all seemed to enjoy themselves… even engaging in conversation with “THE OTHER”.

So why is the world so fucked-up?”

I’d never realized it; but that is the central question of all political blogging, is it not?

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to link to something on Private Buffoon for a while now, because it’s an excellent blog and you should check it out.

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“Anti-Europeanism has always been part of American exceptionalism, which defined itself in contrast to European history, politics, and society.”–Patrick Chamorel. 

And, as the article that quotes him notes, Europeans hate the US, too. Although, I don’t think it’s as simple as: the European Nationalists hate the US, and the American nationalists hate them. Rather, I suspect that it is the Cosmopolitan outlook they have which looks down upon American Nationalism.

This is sort of odd, actually, because in general Nationalists hate all the other nations, and Cosmopolitans  “praise, with enthusiastic tone… every country but their own.” and yet I have never gotten the sense that European animosity towards the US is animated by National Pride,Continental, or even Cultural Pride. The last thing I’d expect is for Cosmopolitans to hate some other country’s Nationalists. Yet, I think that’s happening here. From the same article:

“‘They [the Europeans] are weak, petulant, hypocritical, disunited, duplicitous, sometimes anti-Semitic and often anti-American appeasers,’ Garton Ash wrote of America’s implicit disdain for its allies. Social trends seem to constantly reinforce that opinion. Rising secularism and spreading, ultraliberal social attitudes in Europe contrast ever more sharply with a perceived new American Puritanism.” 

Strange.

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 (Couldn’t resist posting this, but you don’t have to watch it to understand the post)

The Gunslinger linked to this piece by Robert Weissberg in American Thinker, and I’ve been trying to write about it for a while now. I encourage you to read it all, but here’s the basic point:

 “After auditioning countless political terms, I finally realized that the Obama administration and its congressional collaborators almost resemble a foreign occupying force, a coterie of politically and culturally non-indigenous leaders whose rule contravenes local values rooted in our national tradition. It is as if the United States has been occupied by a foreign power, and this transcends policy objections. It is not about Obama’s birthplace. It is not about race, either; millions of white Americans have had black mayors and black governors, and this unease about out-of-synch values never surfaced.

The term I settled on is “alien rule” — based on outsider values, regardless of policy benefits — that generates agitation.” 

It would be easy to dismiss this as racism, despite the author’s denials. And perhaps he really is a racist, I don’t know. But let’s take him at his word and suppose that he isn’t. What is it he senses from Obama that seems to him so foreign?

In his article, he lists numerous supposedly non-native things Obama has done, such as various appointments, his association with Bill Ayers (which isn’t much), his bowing to foreign leaders, his acknowledgments–Weissberg calls them apologies–for various things that America has done in the past, etc. 

But he is wrong. These things are not un-American; rather, they are merely the behavior of one who does not believe in American exceptionalism–at least not deeply. A simpler way of putting this is to say that Obama has a distinct lack of nationalistic feeling.

Now, let me make it clear that this does not (necessarily) mean Obama is lacking in patriotism. The distinction is a subtle one, and I find I cannot improve upon George Orwell’s description of the difference:  “Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation…”

Orwell, who was no nationalist, was a tad harsh in his language, but he spoke to a core truth. Nationalism is a feeling not merely of pride in one’s country, but rather a desire for–and it sounds worse than I mean it to–conquest, perhaps even for empire. And nationalism places far higher importance upon symbols and traditions than does the kind of pacifically patriotic cosmopolitanism that Obama embodies. To the nationalist, a bow to a foreign leader, or the failure to wear a flag pin, is of great significance, yet to the non-nationalist these things hold no meaning.

To this extent, Weissberg is correct in his assessment that Obama is not like “us”, if we take “us” to be the largely nationalist readers of the American Thinker. But this does not mean he is foreign. On the contrary; the philosophy of Obama’s is one that is common here, especially in the cities. This particular feeling of patriotic love of one’s own country, but lack of a desire to export it, is not foreign. It is merely the typical attitude of the cosmopolitan intellectual.

(Because this attitude is so common in the cities, it is no surprise that the nationalists have such low regard for them. When Sarah Palin spoke of “pro-America” parts of the country, it was to the nationalistic, rural areas that she was alluding, as opposed to the cosmopolitanism of the cities.)

And here we begin to see the true nature of the divide between right and left, Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal. All these titles are merely masks for the divide between nationalism and cosmopolitanism. That is the difference.

If one had to sum up what Weissberg sees in Obama in a single word, it would be not “foreign”, nor “alien”; but rather “internationalist”.