Real Right Patriotism

Patrick J. Deneen has penned a fascinating piece on the "re-ascendancy of Left-wing patriotism" and the "growing chorus of voices on the Right... [that] has begun taking up quite a bit of the substance of the criticisms of America made formerly by the New Left, albeit to a different tune and distinct set of goals" — The End of Right Patriotism?

He mentions antiwar conservative Andrew Bacevich's "condemnation of the broad sweep of American political history and its basic self-congratulatory narrative." He notes that "the single greatest accomplishment of Reagan... [was] a fundamental redefinition of conservatism from the pessimistic strain of the likes of Russell Kirk, Whittaker Chambers and Richard Weaver to a more optimistic strain" and suggests we may be witnessing "a rejuvenation of pre-Reagan conservatism." (This explains why I've never had much use for the fortieth president.)

Mr. Deneen concludes by advocating the "tradition of localism, community, self-government based in limits, a culture of memory and tradition, undergirded by faith and virtue" and "a revival of patriotism... based in places and folkways, not abstraction and expansion."

Amen to that! Said the great G. K. Chesterton: "A patriot does not boast of the largeness of his country, but of its smallness."

The "re-ascendancy of Left-wing patriotism" and the "deeply anti-conservative Emersonian roots of much of Reagan’s optimism" that Mr. Deneen writes of have nothing to with patriotism and everything to do with nationalism, and are to be rejected outright. I'm afraid that what we'll see is two sets of nationalists, neocon and neolib, cheering for their team when it is in power, while real patriots on the Right (and Left, too) get branded an un-American.