Celebrate Independence Day by Insulting a Politician
There’s not a lot that unites Americans anymore, with too many people more aligned with their political tribes than with their shared nationality. But one thing that just about all of us like to do is bitch about people who hold government office. We don’t bitch about the same lawmakers and officials, but we have that resentment of those who wield coercive power and the vitriol we direct at them in common. If nothing else ties us together as Americans, our eagerness to criticize the powers that be may stand as a final connection.
Not Even the Flag Holds Us Together
Even on Independence Day, not even the American flag necessarily speaks for our common citizenship.
“Today, flying the flag from the back of a pickup truck or over a lawn is increasingly seen as a clue, albeit an imperfect one, to a person’s political affiliation in a deeply divided nation,” Sarah Maslin Nir wrote for The New York Times in 2021. “What was once a unifying symbol — there is a star on it for each state, after all — is now alienating to some, its stripes now fault lines between people who kneel while ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ plays and those for whom not pledging allegiance is an affront.”
That squares with polling that finds Republicans view the flag more positively than Democrats. Little more than a third of Democrats now report being proud to be American—down from almost two-thirds a year ago when their party held the White House. Meanwhile, more than 85 percent of Republicans consistently report pride in being American.
…but We Have Harsh Words for the Powerful in Common
But proud of their country or not, and with or without the red, white, and blue, Americans have a common taste for calling out politicians and government officials for their conduct, their ideology, their personal failings, and especially for abuses of power. That’s been true from the country’s very beginning, when the founders tore into the British government and its king in the Declaration of Independence:
When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despot
Article from Reason.com
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