America, not 'Merica
Let's show our children another way forward
After a busy week, I finally got to sit down at the end of August to watch the last night of the DNC live, eagerly awaiting the acceptance speech of Kamala Harris. Both of my kids caught a few speeches, but my 15-year-old daughter stayed up a little longer, sitting transfixed as Adam Kinzinger delivered a powerful case for why principled Republicans could and should vote for Kamala Harris. She had never heard a conservative talk like him, demonstrating love for his country and his neighbors.
She finally looked over and said, "This looks and feels like America. Not 'Merica. But the whole word."
I wanted to cry, because all my young Gen Z daughter knows is a political environment full of hatred and vitriol and fear of the “other.”
When I was three months pregnant with her, I voted for Barack Obama. When he won, I quietly celebrated that my daughter would be born into a world where a non-white president wasn’t an impossibility. It was a given. Obama was still president when our son was born two and a half years later. Just as my early glimpses of a president in action had been watching Ronald Reagan from a distance, my children would see Barack Obama in the news.
He may have been the first president they ever saw on television, but they don't remember the Obama years, not really. And while they proudly embrace Texas as part of their identity, they know nothing about the Bushes and their desire for compassionate conservativism. They don’t know who John McCain was, nor did they witness his revolutionary act in correcting a voter who repeated lies about Obama’s faith and ethics. The twin eulogies presented at McCain’s funeral by both Bush and Obama mean nothing to them.
Their first real political memory is waking up the morning after Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2016 election, their mom holding back tears as she told them everything would be ok. Their childhood memories have been dominated by a man who I would never trust them to be alone with. Many of us thought he would go away when he lost in 2020. Instead, my husband and I sat transfixed on January 6, 2021, waiting for the government to take back the Capital building and finally make Joe Biden’s victory official. Our children played in the other room as I fought to hold back more tears, the fear for my family and my country consuming me.
I no longer pretend to romanticize the politics of my childhood. While many never-Trump conservatives still look back on Reagan with fondness, I have come to realize he laid the groundwork for where we are today. He began dismantling the government programs keeping many out of poverty. He stoked racist flames by referring to Black mothers as welfare queens, even though the majority of welfare recipients continue to be poor, rural white families. He ignored the AIDS crisis, causing the death of thousands. He embraced a “pro-life” platform that was about making abortion illegal, not ending the need for abortion. And the list goes on and on.
And yet, he was also the man who spoke to us in our living rooms when I was a first-grader, still trying to wrap my head around an exploded space shuttle. He stood up against the Soviet Union, telling Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.” He exuded compassion and gravitas, even if in retrospect his policies did not always reflect that.
I watched four more presidents struggle with the hardest job in the world over the next 28 years. Sometimes they succeeded. Sometimes they failed. But they never stopped trying to do better.
The legacies of the presidents who resided over the first 37 years of my life are still being written. We are just now seeing the lasting impacts of decisions each one made. I have criticism and praise for each one. Each one raised certain questions of character and motiviation, and each one has had to live with decisions that will haunt them until the end.
And yet, I never doubted their love for America. I never doubted their love for the American people. I never doubted their desire to see America lead the world forward.
While the hyper-patriotism that would become ‘Merica started to take root in the wake of 9-11, it wouldn’t show all of its colors until 2016. While the militant underbelly of Christian Nationalism has been brewing since the 1980s, the marriage of cross and flag wouldn’t be complete until November 2016. While racism has plagued our country since her inception, it would take red hats to bring back the open and unashamed racial hatred and misogeny of White Supremacy.
For over eight years, all our children have seen is public worship of an idealized past, the ‘Merica of the few denying the America that belongs to all of us.
America, the land of opportunity, has never fully lived up to her promise. She was founded on the backs of slaves and the bones of indigenous tribes. People of nearly every social group, ethnicity, race, gender, and creed have had to fight for the right to cast a vote. They have had to fight for the right to freely live their lives. And they have slowly won those fights over and over again.
But we are a nation of over 330,000,000 people with origin stories coming from all over the globe. When the French gave us the Statue of Liberty, it came with the inscribed words, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” And so we became the landing place for millions seeking a better life. Consensus in policies and beliefs will never be ours. We are a pluralistic society that has to learn how to live life together, but the goal has always been a more perfect union, not perfect.
It is time for us to shut down those who want to celebrate ‘Merica, and instead work to finally be America at her very best.
What does that mean?
‘Merica embraces endless, wasteful consumerism. America embraces capitalism that recognizes the role we all play in growing our economy.
‘Merica says freedom for me but not for thee. America says all must be free regardless of how they pray, who they love, and where their grandparents were born.
‘Merica says if we look backward we'll find our strength. America says our strength is in our ability to innovate and optimistically look forward.
‘Merica says I will fight to defend my right to be an unapologetic asshole. America says I will fight to defend your right to be a complicated human being.
‘Merica says the land is mine to do with what I want. America says the land is ours to cultivate and preserve for future generations.
‘Merica believes that to become a “more perfect union” we need homogenous communities. America knows that diversity is what makes us a stronger, “more perfect union.”
I still believe in the American Experiment. I believe there is more that unites us than divides us. This year, let us show our neighbors there is a different and better way forward. We can look to the past to learn how to improve, but we’re not going back.
Support my writing
While most of my work here is free for all subscribers, it is still a labor of love that I fit into the few hours I have when I am not teaching or being an attentive wife and mom. If you want to support my writing but do not want to commit to being a paid subscriber, please consider a one-time donation.
You can also support me by ordering my book or books from my favorite book lists at my Bookshop.org affiliate page.
Check out my RedBubble store for related merchandise.
If you want to be a regular supporter, you can upgrade your subscription from free to paid and get occasional content only for paid subscribers.
And thank you for supporting my journey 💗
Beautifully written…I’ll be holding my breath until Election Day
This is beautiful and powerful. Thank you for sharing your vision for America. It lines up with those of us who believe in the possibility of our country. Despite, or maybe because of, our individual differences, we are more alike than different (in the ways that count). I celebrate the possibilities of a future focused on lifting people up rather than beating them down.
I have hope.