This is an adapted excerpt from the May 6 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
Donald Trump and his allies love to lecture Americans about what it means to be patriotic. But it’s become pretty clear by now that their brand of patriotism is based primarily on performative things.
Just consider what they’ve been focused on over the past few weeks. In the House, Republicans advanced a bill to officially rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. It’s an “accomplishment” that Republican Speaker Mike Johnson even took a moment to tout on social media — probably more pressing matters that the House could tackle, but sure.
What about the kind of patriotism that goes beyond the public displays? Patriotism that demonstrates actual solidarity with your fellow Americans?
Over at the White House, Trump has been busy redecorating, putting his personal touch on pretty much everything. He’s scouting the North Lawn and the South Lawn for a place to put two new flagpoles that he says will be nearly 100 feet tall. Trump told reporters that he was installing them because “they’ve needed flagpoles for 200 years.”
Of course, we also know that the Trump administration is planning a military parade in Washington, D.C., for June 14, Flag Day. It’s also the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, and it happens to be Trump’s birthday.
Now, you might remember that Trump tried to hold a military parade during his first term, but those plans were curtailed over the cost and concern that military vehicles, like tanks, would damage the streets of D.C. Apparently, those are not considered problems this time around. According to defense officials familiar with the planning who spoke to NBC News, an early estimate puts the cost of Trump’s parade at as much as $45 million.
It’s a lot of pageantry: Look at our newly labeled maps, our new giant flagpole, the tanks rolling down the streets. But what about the kind of patriotism that goes beyond the public displays? The kind of patriotism that demonstrates actual solidarity with your fellow Americans? Well, when you look for that kind of patriotism, Trump and the Republican leadership are woefully lacking. There are a lot of examples to highlight here: Trump’s dramatic cuts to things such as public health, disaster relief and food banks, but there’s one area I want to focus on: the Department of Veterans Affairs.
According to photographs obtained by The New York Times, since Trump overturned remote work arrangements for federal employees, VA mental health physicians have been forced to use cramped office spaces to provide teletherapy. The situation has led to a dramatic lack of privacy for veterans seeking mental health care, which clinicians have said limits the effectiveness of treatment. Those conditions are also reportedly pushing some providers to quit or retire early, at a moment when the agency is already facing “severe” shortages of psychologists and psychiatrists, according to an agency report.
Democrats now have an opportunity to push for a deeper definition of patriotism.
This isn’t even mentioning the effect of Trump’s budget cuts to the VA. According to internal VA emails obtained by ProPublica, the cuts are jeopardizing veterans’ care, including “lifesaving cancer trials.” That damage to lifesaving care is coming before the Trump administration has gone through with its plan to eliminate at least 70,000 of the 500,000 employees who work at the agency, most of whom work in VA hospitals or clinics.
If you want to be patriotic, how about less focus on maps, flagpoles and parades, and more on providing quality care for the people who actually served this country? Despite what Trump and the MAGA world think, patriotism isn’t about simple displays.
Right now, Democrats have an opportunity to push for a deeper definition of patriotism. Some Democrats are already seizing on that opportunity, such as Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.
During his commencement address at Lincoln University on Sunday, Moore pitched his own vision for how Democrats can reclaim patriotism from the Republican Party: “Our country is just deeply divided right now into two camps, but it’s not left versus right, it’s not red versus blue. It’s a divide between those who use patriotism as a club to beat others and those who feel ashamed to bear the flag, between those who think loving America means hating half the people in it and those who allow cynicism about our nation’s history to obscure their aspirations.”
