PrintMarch 17, 2022
The Irony of Progressive 'Anti-Nationalism'
Progressives like to assert that nationalism is toxic, poisonous, and dangerous.
It is, in their mind, a dark legacy of prejudiced times, the belief of intolerant deplorables and closet Nazis and “white nationalists.”
To be called a nationalist by a progressive is almost as bad as being called a white nationalist or white insurrectionist, other popular terms of abuse hurled at their political foes. Irony is never lost on progressives however, for progressives are the real toxic nationalists in America.
Conservatives are defenders of the old republic, the republic established by the Founding Fathers and codified in the Constitution. That republic is premised on decentralization, the primacy of civil society and individual states, against the uniform power of the federal government. In short, conservatives are the real defenders of “pluralism” in the sense of the uniqueness and priorities of states and municipalities to decide how to organize themselves.
Progressive critics like to claim that the Constitution was a great increase in federal power and established the principles of their federalizing vision. This obscures several important points. First is that the Constitution is very limited in its federalizing authority. While it is true that the Constitution increased central power compared to the Articles of Confederation, what is prescribed to the central government in the Constitution is specifically enumerated and limited in nature.
Second, the Constitution repeatedly grants privileges and expansive authority to the states. “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The text of the Tenth Amendment is very clear and precise especially when read in the context of the entire Constitution. Since the Constitution expressly enumerates the power delegated to the new federal government, everything not expressed in it is to be left “to the States” and “the people.”
Third, the imagination of a totalitarian constitution by progressives (the “living constitution” that can be molded to whatever desire progressives have) discounts all the historical evidence and reflections on the nature of the American republic that was the light of the world and the envy of other nations. Alexis de Tocqueville, for instance, marveled:
Nothing is more striking to an European traveler in the United States than the absence of what we term the Government, or Administration. Written laws exist in America and one sees that they are daily executed; but although everything is in motion, the hand which gives the impulse to the social machine can nowhere be discovered.
This decentralized America of many states and many municipalities is precisely what progressives cannot abide by. The Tenth Amendment, they claim, is a “dog whistle” for racists. Thus it must be eliminated. The lack of a federal administration in all facets of life—something Tocqueville considered part of the American genius and true democratic spirit—is also a recipe for inefficiency, thus progressives need to establish federal bureaucracy and institutions everywhere across the union to achieve their vision of uniform perfection and efficiency.
The irony of the vision of progressives is that they are more stringently nationalist than any of their supposed “nationalist” enemies. This shouldn’t be a surprise either to those who know American history. The original progressives were nationalists of a totalitarian stripe. They saw a totalizing vision for the new American nation at the turn of the century that would replace Middle America and the America that Tocqueville wrote about during his travels across the union.
We are still living under the totalitarian tentacles of progressives one hundred years later. Unlike their forebears who proudly wore the label nationalists, contemporary progressives hide their nationalist vision under the guise of “anti-nationalism.” Yet what is more nationalist than what progressives seek to accomplish?
They want national health care. They constantly expand a national welfare system through social security, Medicare, and Medicaid. They impose national regulations from federal bureaucracies that impact all states and cities across the country even if such regulations are harmful to certain states and communities. They demand a national education program based on a single curriculum that will be imposed across all fifty states and every public school across the country.
Any state or city that defies the progressive agenda is subject to scrutiny, federal backlash, and intense federal interference. Everything progressives advocate is nationalizing with the full power of the national government and its many bureaucracies backing it up. And oh, talk of “insurrection” implies nationalism too. What else are insurrectionists guilty of?
Under the veil of “anti-nationalism,” progressives are intent on creating a uniform and amalgamated America just like the progressives of yesteryear. Defenders of locality, individuality, states’ rights, and the old Constitution are scornfully labeled nationalists (especially of the “white” variety) which obscures the fact that conservatives and a few courageous Republicans who are not part of the Washington Swamp seek to defend American pluralism and individuality from progressive homogeneity. The progressive vision is far more nationalistic than what conservatives advocate: a simple love of country without the desire to be beholden to a national bureaucratic system. What makes the progressive vision so acidic and dangerous is who is subjugates everything to the federal government.
More recently, the left and their allies have been pushing the language of treason, treasonous, and treachery. “Traitor” is now a favorite word among the left wielded to discredit their opponents. But what does treachery and treason entail? Betrayal of one’s nation. I thought nations and nationalism was bad and that we were moving into the cosmopolitan ideal of open borders and global cooperation. Looks like progressives have rediscovered the importance of nations and national virtue—not really, they only use the ideas and language when it suits their political propaganda and goals.
Of course, irony is not lost on progressives who are often too dull to realize what they are: the very thing they claim to despise. Almost every Democratic candidate for mayor, governor, state legislature, and Congress have the same politics and vision for America. So much for “diversity.” (This is why progressives hate the few Democrats who still resist the groupthink of progressivism; we’ll see how long they last as they age toward retirement or primaries.)
What made America great, and what makes America great today, is the reality of our decentralized civil society where individuals and their families can live their lives without the fear of government interference and political interference from armchair and bureaucratic utopians in California and New York and Washington DC telling them how to live their lives. American civil society, that remarkable spirit of the human soul that captivated Tocqueville, is the true magnet of the American experience. In place of that vision of America, progressives opt to create a bland uniformity where all distinctions are wiped away and we become their subservient tools.
Paul Krause is the editor of VoegelinView. He is the author of The Odyssey of Love: A Christian Guide to the Great Books, The Politics of Plato, and contributed to The College Lecture Today and the forthcoming book Diseases, Disasters, and Political Theory.
Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License
