America, Democracy, Elections

Steven Johnston

Neal A. Maxwell Chair in Political Theory, Public Policy, and Public Service, University of Utah

America’s national elections in the fall promise to be expensive and ugly. Expensive because a hyper-activist conservative Supreme Court majority opened the monetary floodgates in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission; ugly because the Republican party thinks it is the one and only political entity to rule the United States legitimately. This is one of many reasons it has sought to destroy the presidency of Barack Obama from the day he assumed office and will spare no expense to finish the job over the next four months.

For many citizens, the elections don’t amount to much. The differences between the parties, from one angle of vision, are slight. Each bears responsibility for the neo-depression which continues to inflict awesome suffering on tens of millions of Americans and each remains beholden to Wall Street bankers and financiers. One party would let neo-liberal capitalism run completely amok; the other would moderate it around the edges. Obama’s economic team (Timothy Geithner and Company) champions the very philosophies that led to disaster. As for national security affairs, Obama has extended and enhanced the executive self-aggrandizement practiced by the Bush-Cheney Gang, evidenced most notably, perhaps, in Obama’s claim that the president can play prosecutor, judge, and jury as he orders the assassinations of American citizens while waging personally the so-called war on terror.  Obama has also one-upped Bush-Cheney with unrivaled efforts to target and imprison those who leak, a valuable democratic act, details of government malfeasance and criminal conduct. The hope that Obama represented has come largely to naught. If people don’t feel betrayed, perhaps especially the much coveted American youth, they feel a profound sense of disappointment. Obama’s been a presidential loser.

For many citizens, on the other hand, significant differences between the parties remain—regarding gays, women, reproductive freedom, the environment, religious tolerance, and immigration, to name but a handful of issues. Despite Obama’s abysmal performance as president, a combination of foreign arrogance and bellicosity and domestic foolishness and passivity, a second term would be preferable to a manifest political hack such as Romney, who, when he’s not lying about Obama’s record, exhorts policies (tax cuts, deregulation) that promise more of the same economic destruction and radical redistribution of wealth the GOP has perpetrated for decades. A Romney presidency would do nothing but make matters worse—unless you belong to the same privileged world of Romney. His is a vision of the one-tenth of one percent for the one-tenth of one percent.

There might be another way to think about the election, national politics, and the economy, namely, in terms of democracy’s future. It’s not that the United States can claim to be much of a democracy these days no matter your party affiliation; it’s that the Republican Party envisions an America in which democracy is effectively eliminated and power is privatized. To better service its financial and corporate overlords, it seeks permanent one-party rule, which will further weaken electoral accountability, and give free rein to the fiction of an impersonal market that can only be harmed by state regulation but in reality relies on a great deal of state support to function. This GOP fantasy has been kept alive and nourished by Obama’s pathetic performance.


The ambition of one-party rule lies behind the GOP’s historic abuse of the filibuster, which converts majority rule into effective minority governance by blocking Senate action on legislation; the ambition of one-party rule lies behind the GOP’s multi-state effort to purge the electoral roles of legally registered voters (young, poor, ethnic) who might favor the Democrats in the name of a concern for widespread fraud that does not exist; the ambition of one-party rule lies behind the GOP campaign to destroy public sector unions in the name of fiscal responsibility while the party continues to push for tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans; this is but a prelude to planned assaults on private sector unions, with both entities assumed to be Democratic supporters; crush the unions, kill the Democratic Party; the ambition of one-party rule lies behind GOP redistricting efforts following the 2010 census to ensure their electoral success prior to any actual election; the ambition of one-party rule lies behind the blatantly partisan Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, which threatens to render moot the always precarious notion of competitive or meaningful elections on behalf of the GOP; it even lies behind John Roberts probable change of mind in the health care decision, a brilliant tactical calculation (given the rapidly deteriorating respect in which the Court is held) to sacrifice a short-term goal better to guarantee long-term political victory.

It’s not that America’s democracy doesn’t routinely find itself, to some degree, under pressure, even downright assault. The “war on terror,” for example, like so many wars before it, has been accompanied by a retrenchment of various political rights, assembly, free speech, and habeas corpus among them. It’s that the Republican Party openly seeks to defeat, marginalize, silence, and ultimately destroy its political enemies so that it can rule (rightly, of course) untrammeled, indefinitely. In this context, it could be argued that citizens have an obligation to vote against the party of their choice, if that party is the Republican Party, because of a greater obligation they have to American democracy.

It’s not enough for Republicans to see their values and interests triumphant at the ballot box; they believe that their values and interests are one with America itself—properly articulated and understood, of course. It doesn’t matter that the people themselves would—do—disagree. Those who disagree are wrong at best, deviant and dangerous at worst. The Republicans have shown that they are ready, willing, and eager to inflict enormous damage on the country to see their one-world vision realized. Hence their opposition to meaningful economic stimulus to put people back to work and help balance the budget despite years of depression; hence their refusal to provide aid to state and local governments, despite record low interest rates, because it would have lowered unemployment rates and bolstered the gains in the private sector; hence their opposition to restoring tax rates to the Clinton era to help balance the budget despite the fiscal cataclysm they say awaits us; hence their opposition to health care insurance for tens of millions of Americans without it and a penalty for free riders, which would also contribute to fiscal responsibility; hence their opposition to even minimal regulatory action to prevent a restoration of the economic practices the damage from which the country still suffers, as J.P. Morgan reminds us; hence their opposition to consumer protection reform that might secure home buyers against destructive mortgages and put a dent in the profit margins of big banks that charge customers predatory interest rates for credit cards and outrageous fees for everyday transactions.

The Republican economic and political vision is incompatible with anything but a pretense of democracy. Democracy is not only unnecessary to this vision; it’s a threat to it. Is it any wonder that American police, taking their marching orders on behalf of private property and “public safety,” after a period of indulgence, acted swiftly and decisively to contain, control, and finally remove the Occupy Wall Street movement from city streets and public view? With democracy an increasingly endangered species and any kind of economic security increasingly beyond reach for most Americans, much more than one election may be on the line in the fall. The nature and future direction of the American economy—and thus the life prospects of the 99.9% percent—are at stake; the distribution of power and wealth both public and private are at stake; America’s democratic future may thus be at stake as well.

Celebrating Death, again

Steven Johnston
Neal A. Maxwell Chair in Political Theory, Public Policy, and Public Service, University of Utah

For America’s elected representatives, the 2011 holiday season called for gift-giving, both material and symbolic. The recipient, if you will, was patriotism. First came the “Vow to Hire Heroes Act.” Now we have the Civil Service Recognition Act. The Democratic and Republican parties may be split on which version of neoliberal capitalism ought to govern America’s social, economic, and political life, but they can always agree on the fundamentals of patriotism, including the need to feed this insatiable affective cultural machine. Patriotism is always on guard for new sources of sustenance to maintain its glossy sheen. Nothing rivals dying for your country, unless, of course, it’s killing for your country—though when it comes to killing, the celebration tends toward the discrete.

The Civil Service Recognition Act provides for (to quote the statute) “the presentation of [a] United States flag on behalf of federal civilian employees who die of injuries incurred in connection with their employment.” It is not just military service personnel who risk—and lose—their lives working in the name of the American people (members of the diplomatic corps offer one prominent example). Nor do you need to serve abroad to have your life placed in danger. It can happen on the home front as well, a space increasingly militarized and securitized in the last thirty years.

Who would object to honoring those who 'serve' their country and pay the proverbial ultimate price? Well, the American Legion, for one. Initially, it condemned the bill, citing the following language as objectionable: “A flag shall be furnished and presented…in the same manner as a flag is furnished and presented on behalf of a deceased member of the Armed Services who dies while on active duty.” Fang Wong, the Legion’s national commander, objected to the equation of civilian and military service, privileging the latter: “Civil service workers do not sign a pledge to defend America with their lives, they are not forced to serve in combat zones, and their work routines do not include engaging enemy forces overseas.” Not surprisingly, right-wing bloggers joined in the condemnation, one describing it as “The Flags for Bureaucrats Act,” arguing (I use the term loosely) that it was “just another trapping of power available from the federal government to all those people in the ever expanding federal bureaucracy.” The statute was quickly changed, as supporters of the bill insisted no equation was intended—or possible. The American Legion supported the amended bill without hesitation. Patriotism’s love affair with death again won the day.

Still, and somewhat strangely, the ritual enacted into law hasn’t changed (a flag will still be presented). How to make sense of this? It seems that the American Legion was primarily interested in policing the terms of American political discourse. You simply cannot say publicly (this applies especially to the state) anything that seems to equate civilian and military service. The latter is sacrosanct.

What allegedly distinguishes these forms of service? Though Fang Wong won’t explicitly say it, it’s the act of killing for country that separates the two. Presumably most civilians who die in the performance of official duties do not kill, but this distinction does not always hold true—just ask the CIA. Does the exception prove the rule?

Ironically, the right-wing hysteria may be warranted, a defensive reaction designed to deflect attention from another reality not to be exposed—the mercenary character of the military forces of the United States, which are routinely showered with (more and more) trappings to join and remain in the military. If anything, the military represents the pinnacle of achievement in the American welfare state, though many Americans might be loath to think in such terms. This is the comparison that must be unthinkable, certainly unspeakable. What’s more, the real issue is not that civilian service might rise to the level of military service; the fear is that military service is no more elevated than civilian service. As Andrew Rosenthal points out, many conservatives don’t consider government jobs real jobs; well, how is it that a military career became so highly valued in a country whose founders were deeply suspicious of a standing army? Many conservatives deride professional politicians (Mitt Romney, ludicrously, tried to tarnish Newt Gingrich with this label in a recent GOP debate). While not endorsing such a judgment (I like politics), I would ask how professional military service achieved its exalted status. Shouldn’t it be something that everyone does, briefly, when young? And if a permanent military force is needed, why isn’t it on the list of America’s necessary evils (like government itself)? How is it, for example, that make-work jobs fighting an imperial war in Iraq come to be honored? How was it contributive to America’s collective project?

Finally, the Civil Service Recognition Act, ostensibly reflecting a generous political impulse, excludes and marginalizes as much as it includes and honors. It privileges forms of service informed by death rather than life. Service here functions as a euphemism for sacrifice, itself a euphemism for death. Not surprisingly, then, the thousands of citizens of the Occupy movement will receive no formal recognition for their democratic activism on behalf of justice, fairness, and the 99% (even though they, too, it turns out, risk their lives in its pursuit).

If anything, democratic activism, perhaps especially if undertaken by the wrong people, often fosters state violence and disenfranchisement. Republicans across the country have undertaken a party-sponsored program to systematically eliminate as many likely Democratic voters (openly targeting students) as possible from the electoral process in pursuit of a one-party state. Tragically, those who do in fact kill and die in the name of America’s democratic values thereby see their efforts, in the end, subverted, even destroyed, by those who deploy them with undue ease. For what exactly are they killing and dying?

Vow to Hire Heroes

Steven Johnston

University of South Florida

Three days before Thanksgiving, Barack Obama signed into law the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, a piece of political legislation of, at best, dubious economic value. It offers tax credits to employers who hire veterans. Both parties lined up to support the bill knowing full well that it amounted to little more than political pandering. Despite the fiscal crisis supposedly plaguing the American state, the legislation found few if any detractors. The debt owed the brave men and women who make enormous sacrifices to keep America safe, secure, and free rendered discussion irrelevant. The United States military is perhaps the only institution that transcends the fanatical obstructionism of the Republican Party, an entity so hell-bent on free market utopianism (among others) that it continues to inflict enormous damage on the country and its future. Good patriots that they are, Republicans no doubt believe that harming the country they love is proof positive they love it (with a partial exception for Ron Paul). True, former Republican Senator and Defense Secretary William Cohen recently took the GOP to task for endangering the country’s national security with its anti-tax hysteria, but Cohen issued his rebuke not on behalf of the well-being of the United States but of the American empire.

Does the United States military deserve the plaudits routinely showered on it? This is an open question. For one thing, it is not a citizen army composed of people serving their country in the spirit of equality and mutual obligation. It is a self-selecting professional mercenary force. Too many Americans clearly prefer to have someone else shoulder the responsibility for common security. They have other and better things (the list is endless) to do with their lives.  This might seem (to them) like a free ride without repercussions, an attitude no doubt fostered by a culture of exceptionalism. Nevertheless, entrusting a free way of life to guns-for-hire enables adventurist presidents like George W. Bush to endanger the country at will without genuine fear of domestic blowback. The military draws for support on regional cultures, perhaps especially in the south, that thrive on war and the warrior ethos. They tend to support overwhelmingly the very party and policies that place them in harm’s way and exact such staggering tolls on them and their families. It’s a tangled web of narcissism, masochism, and sadism, which I cannot explore here.

The imperial adventures they authorize, whether deposing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq or fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, do not involve American safety, security, or liberty, widespread legitimizing rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding. To keep American forces deployed worldwide for longer and pointless engagements, the country keeps throwing an increasing number of benefits in their direction, both material and symbolic. Mercenaries must be compensated.

Meanwhile, Occupy Wall Street participants offer and risk their lives in the name of democracy. They do so not only without prior promise of remuneration from an obliging state but also with a reasonable expectation of downright indifference from a highly depoliticized country. Such indifference enables, even encourages police forces from coast to coast to abuse and assault fellow citizens with a sense of impunity.

Mayors from New York to California invoke concerns for public hygiene and equal access to public space to justify their militarized responses to democracy in action. New York’s mayor, learning from a previous public relations disaster, planned, in secret, a late night raid on Zuccotti Park to clear Occupy Wall Street activists. Bloomberg’s late night pincer movement resembled the totalitarian tactics of the secret police in the Soviet Union depicted so brilliantly by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. It’s not that the thuggish behavior of American mayors, high-ranking campus officials, and their police auxiliaries doesn’t provoke outrage: witness the effective response to the UC-Davis Chancellor, the suspension of the Davis Police Chief, and the Berkeley Academic Senate’s vote of no confidence scheduled for Monday, November 28 against that school’s chancellor for police violence against students of Occupy Cal.

Still, the outrage tends to be unduly confined to the already like-minded. It does not produce widespread disgust followed by real political consequences. We are not (yet) Egypt. Bloomberg’s career should have ended with this vicious middle-of-the-night assault on citizens. Of course, it should also have ended following the 2004 GOP Convention in New York where similar police state tactics were implemented against citizens enacting democracy as George Bush waged his personal war of choice in Iraq, but as the recent GOP debate in Washington suggests, no politician will pay a price for sacrificing civil and political liberties in the name of security. Why is it that most Americans tolerate, even cheer, police violence against citizens? Is it that identification with gratuitous displays of state power allows them to imagine that they themselves also possess agency in a world that routinely and rudely reminds them they are impotent?

Occupy Wall Street protestor & USMC Sgt. Shamar Thomas shares his views on police repression with NYPD officers (full video here).

Back to patriotism and economics: You would think the Occupy Wall Street movement might generate a jobs bill to assist the unemployed millions who are entitled to as much consideration as war veterans. No, they are entitled to greater consideration, for these activists actually contribute to democracy by bringing it to life. They do not spread death across the globe in the name of freedom or nation-building. The students who were brutalized at UC-Davis need no lessons in courage from camouflaged warriors who won’t hesitate to go into battle as long as thousands of others are willing to do likewise, as William James famously claimed. (This is one reason James scorned traditional war memorials.) If heroes should be employed, start with the courageous citizens who risk life and limb and occupy space in America’s major cities on behalf of the 99%. A major jobs bill might even stave off the economic collapse that looms on the horizon, thanks in part to European recklessness and intransigence. Such collapse would likely be accompanied by widespread state coercion singling out the usual political suspects for blame, applauded by a majority always in need of scapegoats. Think of it as Sinclair Lewis’s nightmare come true.

Reinventing the dead: United 93

Steven Johnston

University of South Florida

September 11, 2011 marked the tenth anniversary of what has come to be known, both nationally and internationally, as 9/11. Lest anyone forget (not that this was possible, of course, in the United States), we were inundated with reminders in the months, weeks, and days leading up to the commemorative ceremonies that took place in New York City, Arlington, Virginia, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. As with prior anniversaries, the proceedings unfolded as if they had not been elaborately planned and choreographed.

This year Shanksville seemed to receive greater attention than it has in years past. Perhaps this was due to the significant progress made on the national memorial at the crash site. Perhaps it was due to the dominant patriotic narrative that has emerged surrounding United 93. Regardless, former Presidents Bill Clinton (video) and George W. Bush (video) delivered solemn yet stirring remarks to honor and salute the murdered passengers. The story they told: Like the first responders in New York, it was suggested, the passengers of United 93 took decisive action under extraordinary circumstances. Insofar as al Qaeda’s coordinated attacks on the United States amounted to a declaration of war, the passengers on United 93 staged an insurrection and converted a revolt into the first counterattack in the global war on terrorism. Though it cost them their lives, they were successful. The passengers of United 93, who morphed from hijack victims to citizens to patriots in the course of this flight, saved countless lives through their selfless actions. Their example endures as an inspiration to the rest of us, who must find a way to match their heroic service. The romance of this narrative is undeniable. It could even be argued that within its frame, the story has a happy ending: evil defeated, good triumphant and confirmed

The 9/11 Commission Report is the source for this patriotic legend. That it contains fictional elements will surprise no one. Did the passengers of United 93 actually save lives? Though treated as certainty, the evidence is ambiguous and inconclusive. There were fighters in the Washington area that might have shot it down or crashed into it kamikaze-style. Many want to deny this possibility because it seems to detract from the actions of the passengers of United 93. Either way, the hijackers apparently remained in control of the plane until it crashed and the cockpit recording suggests that they crashed it to prevent the passengers from assuming control. This was the hijackers’ backup plan. If the primary target (most likely the United States Capitol) could not be reached, the plane was to be crashed, which would still be counted a success. In short, the hijackers may have failed to reach their initial intended target, but they did not fail, not according to the terms they set for themselves.

From The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation

The dominant narrative that shapes the fate of United 93 disallows precisely such an account. The story that we (must) tell ourselves cannot countenance anything other than American agency in control of events, to say nothing of an American victory. The story of United 93 is thus a struggle over the terms of death. Murder must be made politically meaningful and the extraordinary actions of ordinary people lend themselves to creative recovery. They had to die and die willingly, for that is how they proved themselves (and the country) to be exceptional—ordinary no more but patriots for the ages. What does it mean, however, for the official narrative to claim that the passengers of United 93 sacrificed themselves to save others when they were going to die already and knew it? This is not a question to be asked, at least not on a patriotic memorial occasion. That’s not why the country was “celebrating” 9/11, to quote Rudy Giuliani.

Paul Greengrass’s United 93 (see the trailer here) might constitute a more fitting memorial to the passengers of United 93 precisely because it is not a patriotic rendering of events. The passengers, unnamed in the film, took action after they learned or realized three things: the World Trade Center had been attacked; the pilot and co-pilot were either seriously injured or dead, but certainly not flying the plane; and the plane had descended to such a low altitude that the hijackers had no intention of landing it. At this point, the passengers knew they had to act or die. In their midst was a trained pilot who, with assistance, might have been able to land the plane if the passengers could gain control of it (and ignoring for the moment the presence of fighter planes that might have downed it). Just minutes before United 93 crashed, the cockpit voice recorder registered the following words from one of the passengers: “In the cockpit. If we don’t, we’ll die.” In other words, the passengers of United 93 acted in the name of life—their lives, the lives of their loved ones, with whom many of the passengers were speaking during the last moments of the flight. They did not act for the country, but out of a spirit of resistance that characterizes life itself. This makes them no less remarkable or admirable; if anything it renders them more human. Why do we need to convert them into something other and supposedly greater than what they were? Doesn’t the country’s commitment to death (to killing and dying for it) normalize righteous anger, hate, enmity, and a false sense of innocence and exceptionalism? Doesn’t the country’s easy embrace of a horror story, in which sacrifice of life for country trumps the value of life itself, reflect and further an affective political orientation that resonates with the possible advent of fascism, a prospect recently explored by Bill Connolly? People should beware the kind of commemoration also known as the making of patriots.

Why Do Republicans Hate America?

Steven Johnston

University of South Florida


The political struggle over the nation’s debt, for Republicans anyway, is a battle over government itself. At least since Reagan, Republicans have not really cared about deficits, not as a matter of fiscal principle or prudence anyway. Rather, they seek to wage internecine war against both the idea and reality of government and in this ideological battle the issue of deficits can be a useful weapon, especially if it can be linked somehow to the issue of taxes, which must always be cut. Revenues can never be understood, let alone experienced as a form of social investment. Creating and accumulating large deficits enables Republicans to call for, even demand large reductions in government spending and programs, regardless of their consequences. The strategy is referred to as starving the beast.

Republicans, of course, cloak themselves in the rhetoric of freedom and necessity and express concern about future generations. That the beast they would slay ultimately translates to the lives of American citizens, including some of the most vulnerable who depend on government social programs to which they enjoy legal, political, and moral entitlement, is irrelevant. Hatred of government is a disease with them. They loathe common purpose and project, especially when channeled through the state. Their hatred of government, it seems to me, is tantamount to hatred of country.

It’s time to rethink Republican ideology, aspirations, and rhetoric and ask: why do Republicans hate America? I would ask: why do Republicans hate their country, but I don’t think Republicans, crystallized in the so-called Tea Party, have any sense of belonging to, taking pride in, or sharing a greater common enterprise, that is, a country. Rather, they tend to worship at the altars of casino capitalism, this or that fundamentalist church and its social dogmas, and, perhaps most of all, the untrammeled self.

Consider the following. Republicans have suggested dismantling Medicare and would like to do the same to Social Security. These are two of the greatest public collective accomplishments in American history. Modest as they are when compared to many European countries, they have nonetheless provided generations of Americans with financial security and protected many of them from impoverishment. Yet it is the very success and popularity of these programs that incense Republicans such as Paul Ryan and fuel their furious determination to be rid of them. The same dynamic is at work in Republican hostility toward landmark Civil Rights legislation and protections, remarkable public achievements on behalf of racial equality, which they routinely seek to eliminate and portray as obsolete and infringements upon fundamental freedoms. Why do they hate America?

Republicans also regularly work to subvert America’s system of public education. They try to divert as many dollars as possible to charter schools and other mechanisms that privatize secondary education. Chronic under funding enables Republicans perpetually to condemn the many shortcomings in American education that fiscal starvation itself helps create. Current financial crises allow them to fire teachers and invoke poorly performing schools as evidence that public education doesn’t work in the United States. As for state university systems, Republicans seek to convert them into corporatized spaces where education is reduced to mere instrumentality. Train, don’t educate. Reduce faculty (nothing but leftists anyway), enlarge classes, accelerate graduation schedules, and raise tuition rates so students won’t be such a drag on state budgets. It is the very success of public education (training future generations of citizens and professionals) that infuriates Republicans. Why do they hate America?

Republicans detest public transportation. Governors such as New Jersey’s Chris Christie refuse federal (stimulus) money for light rail and commuter trains in metropolitan areas that desperately need it. That investment in critical infrastructure would put people to work, relieve traffic congestion, benefit the environment, stimulate the economy, and make for a better future count as strikes against it. America’s greatest cities (New York being the most famous instance) would be unthinkable without vast networks of public transportation and other services, but Republicans detest cities such as New York and resent the public collective genius they represent. Why do they hate America?

You might think that the national landscape would be of concern to everyone. The United States possesses countless distinct natural wonders and the government enjoys responsibility to preserve them for generations to come. But rather than make them accessible to Americans to enjoy in common, Republicans would prefer to sell them to the highest bidder and see them developed for crass commercial gain. A form of public or common treasure must be converted into individual assets. As for protecting gifts of nature from pollution, the country from self-poisoning, and the planet from self-destruction, Republicans tend to be aggressively hostile—just drill, baby, drill. At times, this takes tragicomic forms. The House of Representatives recently passed a bill to prohibit funding a 2007 law increasing light bulb efficiency. One indignant Republican Congressman insists: “the federal government has no right to tell me or any other citizen what type of light bulb to use at home.” As for the Republican who authored the light bulb measure and secured its passage into law, he now opposes it. Why do Republicans hate America?

The only collective public activity that Republicans endorse is war, on behalf of which they suddenly become spendthrifts (prison-building has been another growth industry). They demand the right and power to exercise violence at will across the globe on behalf of the national interest. That habitual aggression and expansion leads to catastrophe not only for others but for the United States, as in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, seems to escape their notice—or, given its contribution to deficits, maybe not. And even in this domain protecting the national interest means guaranteeing the right of individuals to live lives of consumptive ease and abundance, assuming they can “earn” it, of course. Why do they hate America?

What, then, is America to Republicans? It’s a non-place where unencumbered individual (including corporate) interest reigns supreme, which requires for them the minimization, if not elimination, of government. This is not to suggest that a country should be equated with its government. It is to suggest that when Republicans express distaste for public life and institutions (including government), for collective aspirations and achievements, for service to the common good and a sense of social and civic solidarity, especially with those less blessed than they, they evince hatred of America.