The problem with current calls for progressive or even leftist nationalism is NOT the nationalism but that they are without content. Flag waving & statue building alone doesn't win points. The right's nationalism, by contrast, has content (xenophobia).
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The thing with patriotism (or, if we're honest, nationalism) is you can't just adopt it on rhetorical level or use it to teach edifying myths. To be meaningful it has to be attached to a national project, which can be malign (xenophobia) or benign (say, defeating fascism).
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I'm probably more amenable to nationalism than most people (in the mode of Benedict Anderson, I think you can't have a functioning modern society without some nationalism. But that nationalism has to have content.
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Replying to @MattBruenig
Right, true patriotism is 100% agreement with my twitter threads. Anything else is a betrayal of the people and their sacrifices.
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Right, and all politicians do that to some degree. But in practice the type of nationalism that gets the blood flowing, that gets people to actually make sacrifices, has to involve some real project -- a war or lifting the country out of depression. Something real.
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