Unlike some of you, dear readers, I chose to become an American.
Unlike Lt. Col. Vindman, I did not come to the United States as a toddler. By the time I did, I was well-aware of borders and nations–I had already embraced my country of birth’s national myth and my place in it. It is, perhaps for that very reason, that I’ve come to admire the United States. It’s not that I cannot see its flaws. Indeed, it’s quite obvious that this country is one of contradictions. Best embodied by Thomas Jefferson who both wrote “all men are created equal” and a book that argued African-Americans were inferior; it is good to remember that the US is the country of the confederacy and the abolitionists, of Martin Luther King Jr. and George Wallace, the country that fought Hitler and supported Pinochet. And while it is true that the United States has committed a lot of mistakes and has done a lot of awful things in our name—in fact, we are doing that very thing right now—it is also one whose creed few countries can match.
What makes America great, then, is not the jingoistic patriotism that declares the United States to be better than other lands and other people, that romanticizes its history and ignores our track record of abuse, but precisely the one that seeing its past aspires to be better, one where hope can have meaning for any individual, no matter their accent, the color of their skin or what corner of the globe they came from, one where as Lt. Col. Vindman put it, “truth still matters.”
This is an everyday battle that can be easily lost. True American patriotism is the one that takes seriously the words of Martin Luther King who said that all Americans, no matter their color, are heirs to the promissory note of justice that the founding fathers wrote. So I find solace in people like Lt. Col. Vindman who despite what I imagine are many differences in opinion, are still willing to hold our government to account. Even when he personally has so much to risk by doing so, he simply refuses to believe that “the bank of justice has insufficient funds.”
Recently, it feels like it is naïve to think that truth will really win out, but hope is my brand of patriotism. For the sake of all Americans, let us hope this is not just misplaced optimism.