The Positive Side of Nationalism

[Valin]

National Review:

Elites may scorn love of country as primitive. Brexit voters — and many Americans — beg to differ.

Elliott Abrams

June 26, 2016

 

The decision of the British electorate to reject all the advice and browbeatings from the Great and Good, and vote to leave the European Union, is above all a display of nationalism.

 

That word was mostly absent in the discussions I watched on the BBC and in much coverage here in the United States. And when pundits mentioned the word, they used it as a synonym for chauvinism, isolationism, and ignorance much more frequently than as a synonym for patriotism.

 

This should not be a great surprise: Nationalism is out of favor. It has, especially in Europe and for obvious historical reasons, been understood as a basis for fascism and extreme chauvinism. Orwell wrote that nationalism is “power hunger.” Einstein considered it infantile — the view most officials in Brussels probably take. Nationalism is considered by European elites to be a primitive view — indeed, not even a view but an emotion.

 

In the Brexit vote, Brits chose to reject those patronizing views and express their nationalism. By this, they seem to have meant that they want to make the key decisions about their future, and about how they live, through their own democratic institutions. On the BBC on Friday morning, a typically biased interviewer spoke with Radek Sikorski, the former foreign minister of Poland, who denounced Brexit as dangerous and malevolent. His anger and resentment were so great that they finally moved even the BBC to defend the vote. How? On democratic grounds. Don’t people have a right to vote? Isn’t self-rule sacred? It was half amusing, half inspiring to see the interviewer rise to the defense of his countrymen and -women when they were treated with contempt for choosing Westminster over Brussels.

 

There is a message here for Israelis — and for Americans.

 

(Snip)

 

Nationalism is a permanent fixture of American society and politics; and in the view of most Americans, it’s a positive one. It oughtn’t be surprising to Americans that Brexit won, because after all we got so much of our politics and our nationalism from the British in the first place. (This certainly suggests that we ought to respect the British decision and work as hard and as fast as we can to help Britain reassert a greater global role outside the EU.) Trump appears to have realized this, viscerally. Hillary Clinton has not yet gotten the message, and perhaps on some relevant issues she cannot move into a more nationalist position. But on many she can: the need for a stronger military (she served on the Senate Armed Services Committee); the need for a more assertive American position (she, along with General Petraeus and then–secretary of defense Leon Panetta, pushed Obama to hit the jihadis in Syria harder and support non-jihadi rebels); the need to control our borders, whatever immigration policy we then adopt.

 

So why has she not? Politics, partly:............................(Snip)