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“Who here loves our beloved Commonwealth of Kentucky?” Daniel Cameron asked the Fancy Farm crowd. “And who here loves our United States of America?”
He proceeded to answer his queries: “Well, I’m here today because I have a message for you: If you love this commonwealth and you love this country, there’s only one choice in November and that is Donald J. Trump and JD Vance.”
The Republicans cheered and clapped while the Democrats booed and jeered.
Cameron, last year’s failed GOP gubernatorial hopeful and Kentucky’s former attorney general, was none-too-subtly implying that if you vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz, you love neither your country nor your state.
“That’s bull and it’s disgusting,” said Murray State University historian Brian Clardy. “Daniel Cameron should be ashamed of himself.”
He’s not, of course. Nor are Trump and other Republican politicians who similarly pander to patriotism, which Dr. Samuel Johnson, the famous 18th century British writer and critic, defined as “the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Since, others have concluded it’s the first refuge.
Cameron was invited to Fancy Farm to stump for the Trump-Vance ticket. Picnic officials said they couldn’t find a Harris-Walz surrogate.
“How I vote does not determine my patriotism,” said Clardy, an Episcopalian and a Democrat. “For Daniel Cameron to make yet another ridiculous comment equating patriotism with voter choice is offensive to me as a citizen and as someone who has taught U.S. history and American politics for over 30 years.”
The Trump-Vance-Cameron GOP has crossed far over the line from patriotism, or love of country, to nationalism, which acclaimed 20th century British writer George Orwell defined as “power hunger tempered by self-deception.”
Today’s MAGA GOP is rooted in ethno-nationalism, according to Salon senior writer Amanda Marcotte. “Now that they’re a tribe they need ways to define their tribal identity. Religion offers one aspect of that identity. (Whiteness, too, though most will rarely, if ever, say so out loud.)”
Though Cameron is Black, the GOP is overwhelmingly white. “Time after time, key Republican figures have leaned into the ethos and ideological aims of white nationalism,” wrote Clarence Lusane in The Nation. “It’s no wonder that America’s racists, including the KKK, have fallen in love with the modern Trumpublican version of the Republican Party.”
In a video titled “Taking Back Patriotism,” Robert Reich defines patriotism as “loving freedom: the freedom to make your own health care choices, the freedom to choose who and how you love, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to unionize.”
Reich is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California-Berkeley, Senior Fellow at the Blum Center, and was President Bill Clinton’s labor secretary.
“Patriotism also means wanting Americans to be free from the fear of gun violence and free from crushing student debt,” he also said in the video. “Above all, patriotism involves strengthening our democracy. True patriots don’t put loyalty to their political party above their love of America. True patriots don’t support an attempted coup.”
Reich pointed out that Cameron’s party opposes raising the minimum wage, paid family leave, and is against student debt relief. (Republicans from Trump down, with few exceptions, are fiercely anti-labor, supporting union-busting state “right to work” laws and opposing landmark labor legislation like the PRO Act.)
Republicans love to bash big cities (read Black big cities) while insisting they’re the party of “real America” – meaning conservative, mostly white rural states like Kentucky.
Yet, Reich pointed out, ”Republicans have historically tried to block Medicaid expansion and cut its funding, which rural Americans have especially benefited from. They’ve sought to slash funding for rural infrastructure and development. They’ve sided with Big Ag over independent farmers. And they’re continually trying to cut food stamps, which rural Americans depend on — even more than those in cities.”
He continued:
“So maybe it’s the land itself they love. Except that while in office, Donald Trump rolled back more than a hundred environmental regulations, making it easier to pollute America’s air, water, and land.” And he opened about two million acres of federally protected (and culturally significant) land to oil drilling. ”Rather than conserving our land, they seem more interested in conserving Big Oil profits.
“And sadly, Republicans are increasingly rejecting America’s core principles. They’re attacking freedom of speech with book bans. They’re attacking freedom of assembly with laws restricting protests. And they’re rejecting the separation of church and state. Republicans are even shunning democracy itself, denying election results, passing laws that make it harder to vote, and kicking out legitimately elected lawmaker they disagree with.”
Reich argued that “It’s time to stop letting Republicans claim the mantle of patriotism without actually being patriots.”
Clardy agreed. “You have to combat big lies with big truths. You have to be vigilant about that. You cannot allow a pathological liar to get the upper hand.” Ditto for Trump surrogates like Cameron.
Clardy said Cameron, also a Christian, reminds him of Mark 8: 34-38: “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
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