Category: Nationalist Theory

2024 Election, General, Nationalist Theory, Politics

We all must be in the Arena

Bob Claude |

The nation is relieved that former President Trump survived yesterday’s assassination attempt. However, an audience member was killed in the attempt and another injured. They and their families should be in our thoughts and prayers. The photo of Trump defiantly raising his fist before the flag recalls Theodore Roosevelt’s defiance of the attempt on his life during his 1912 presidential campaign, famously declaring that “It takes more than that to kill a bull moose”.

I lead, however, not with that quote, but with Roosevelt’s equally famous “Man in the Arena” speech, where he calls all Americans to embrace the risks of action and the kind of “dust and sweat and blood” that Trump defied. This call does not necessarily mean a call to enter politics ourselves, but to the kind of courage that those who fight for our country here or overseas live daily.  This injuries and deaths at the Trump rally now call us to a new fight for our political life here at home.

Over the past few years, our political debate has coarsened and polarized to the point where violent rhetoric has become shamefully common. Only last week President Biden promised to put his opponent Trump “in the crosshairs”.  A poll in the New York Times revealed that 10% of respondents believed violence was justified against Trump and a similar percentage believed the same about President Biden. The rest of us have seen all of this and either shrugged our shoulders or remained silent out of fear.

We can no longer be among the “cold and timid” who assume this is someone else’s problem. It is time to summon the courage to confront calls to hatred and violence in the political arena and ostracize those who engage in them.  Media outlets that feature or promote them must be shunned and boycotted. Finally, each of us must have the courage to confront friends and acquaintances who engage in such hateful rhetoric and ostracize them as well.  If necessary, we should not hesitate to report them to law enforcement if they pose an imminent threat.  Otherwise, the hatred will not only worsen, but we will also then be complicit in what happens afterwards.

Nationalist Theory, Politics, Uncategorized

The Pride of Being American

Bob Claude |

Source; Adobe Stock

We shall never be successful over the dangers that confront us; we shall never achieve true greatness, nor reach the lofty ideal which the founders and preservers of our mighty Federal Republic have set before us, unless we are Americans in heart and soul, in spirit and purpose, keenly alive to the responsibility implied in the very name of American, and proud beyond measure of the glorious privilege of bearing it.

Theodore Roosevelt, True Americanism, The Forum Magazine, April 1894

At this time of division and doubt in the political world, TR reminds us that we can defeat any threat to our country, foreign or domestic, so long as we remain proud of being Americans and commit ourselves to supporting our national community of fellow Americans, I hope you have a Happy Independence Day, and God Bless America!

Domestic Policy, General, Nationalist Theory, Political Reform, Politics, The Crisis of the American Spirit, Uncategorized

The Crisis of the American Spirit – Introduction

Bob Claude |

America has faced and conquered crises over its history that have destroyed lesser nations. The common cause of these crises was the concentration of power in an elite whose outsized privileges threatened our democracy.  Whether it was British colonialism or the “Slave Power” of southern aristocracy, the key to its durability has been our confidence in the morality of our fundamental ideals and commitment to spreading opportunity to all Americans. This commitment never was implemented in a straight line and many Americans were left out for too long, but we always had the confidence that we would eventually prevail.

The US now stands at another hinge in its history more threatening than any foreign adversary. At a time when autocratic powers like China and Russia are confident to the point of recklessness, the American people are mired in doubt and anger about the future of the nation. You see it in statistics like the decline in the percentage of Americans who are proud of their country or the two-thirds of Americans who say the country is on the wrong track.  Statistics, however, cannot truly convey many American’s deep and boiling anger. It shows in songs like Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” or hip-hop protest songs about “DemoCrips and ReBloodlicans”.  These anthems come from dramatically different sources but express the same sense of betrayal.  They cry out against a hypocritical government and economy preaches opportunity but makes it impossible to achieve.

Theodore Roosevelt never forgot that he became President because of an anarchist’s bullet during a similar period of economic inequality and protest. Criticized as a radical because of his progressive ideals, he always insisted that they were intended to preserve the legitimacy of American free enterprise against more radical and dangerous policies.  TR knew that America could not be strong unless the American people were strong, and Americans could only be strong if they saw a better future for their children.  If we are to survive as a beacon of democracy, we must have courage to confront and conquer the current crisis in the American spirit.  We start by looking back and determining how we lost our sense of American community and shared commitment.

Next – The Confrontation with the Concept of limits