Patriot Month

Our country holds special celebrations for every identity but one: American. It’s time to rectify that.

We are fast approaching the 250^th anniversary of American independence, a genuine triumph for our nation and the truly radical and freedom-centric ideals its founding represents. The past quarter-millennium has shown the United States of America to be the greatest country on the face of the earth, a greatness benefiting not only its own citizens but people all around the world through incredible innovations, the safety umbrella of American military might, and the strength of our ideals and our example as encoded in our unique and aspirational founding documents.

In many ways, we are the envy of the world and have been for much of our existence as an independent country. There is a reason that America is the most desirable destination for those seeking to migrate – our nation provides immense opportunities for prosperity and liberty. The American story of the past 250 years has been one of resilience, risk-taking, achievement, and a constant drive towards fulfilling the promises of the Declaration that started it all. Americans should be incredibly proud of that legacy and the fact that our unique form of government and our national polity have endured for a full quarter of a millennium.

This basic civic nationalism was a feature of the celebrations for the United States’s last major anniversary, the bicentennial of 1976. Celebratory events were well-publicized and heavily attended, excitement was palpable, and media coverage was constant. Despite the genuinely traumatic events of the prior decade, people of all walks of life and political persuasions joined as one to cheer our country and to honor our shared history. . The humiliation of Vietnam, the urban social unrest of the late 60s and early 70s, economic stagnation, energy crises, and Watergate all dramatically undermined the public’s faith in our institutions and politics, making Americans feel less secure. But the bicentennial celebration – a unifying national civic event that spoke to the vast majority of Americans – was a reprieve from the division and the chaos. In the words of Gerald Ford, who as president oversaw the commemoration, “Rarely in the history of the world had so many people turned out so spontaneously to express the love they felt for their country. Not a single incident marred our festival. The nation’s wounds had healed. We had regained our pride and rediscovered our faith, and in doing so, we had laid the foundation for a future that had to be filled with hope.”

Ford was not wrong, but merely premature; his words presaged the coming Reagan Revolution and the return of the muscular patriotism and national self-confidence that allowed us to win the Cold War. America today faces a similar situation as it did in 1976, albeit a better version. Our politics is fragmented, civic society has been steadily crumbling, urban centers are rapidly declining, political violence is increasing, economic uncertainty is on the rise, and the American public seems tired of foreign interventions even as the global threat environment worsens. Still, we are a long way from 1976.

Nonetheless, tToday we unfortunately face a problem the likes of which our forebears could not imagine: a stunning lack of positive sentiment about the basic facets of our country. American patriotism has declined to new polling lows, heavily weighted toward younger generations and those left-of-center politically. This turn against traditional American patriotic sentiment isn’t only a problem of the progressive left: Yet even self-identified Gen Z Republican voters show significantly less patriotic feeling than the generations before them, something reflected in the marked turn some in the right-wing media have made over the past few years to try and capture this audience. These changes are explained by two things: the wholesale embrace of educational curriculum antagonistic to the very idea of American greatness and the promotion of those noxious ideas by the majority of one of our two political parties.

These are serious trends that are not solvable overnight, but thankfully they have not yet become fully dominant. That same survey shows that 58% of Americans are still either “extremely” or “very” proud of our country and a further 19% are “moderately” proud. This remains a supermajority of the population, which opens the door to civic renewal, or at least a broader public celebration of our national identity. We already have special months to commemorate all sorts of distinct ethnic, religious, racial, and sexual identities – adopted largely by progressive activists and their allies in government in order to promote leftist politics and the centering of their preferred identity signifiers – yet we do not have a period dedicated to the one identity we all share: being Americans. That is an oversight worth rectifying.

Enter Patriot Month. The 30 days between June 4 and July 4 are a perfect time to honor our shared American civic culture and the incredible history that has built the great nation we live in today. That month-long window is replete with important and representative events from the American past, notably during the founding era, showcasing the martial, political, and civic achievements of our society. From the June 4th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment to the anniversary of the D-Day invasions, from Flag Day to Juneteenth, with ample other events sprinkled throughout worthy of commemoration and celebration in our nation’s historical narrative throughout, June is perfectly positioned to host a unified celebration of American history and accomplishment. Independence Day is wonderful, and would be the capstone to each Patriot Month, but one day isn’t enough to stem the rising tide of unpatriotic feeling. Honoring our country each year and focusing on the centuries of good our nation has done are an antidote to the divisive progressivism that seeks to undermine our national story and stoke negativity about the United States. And there is no better time than our auspicious 250^th birthday to inaugurate these festivities. Rather than being a month of disparate, seemingly unconnected holidays, June could be a unified drumbeat of celebration for American achievement, American ideals, and American aspirations, all tied up into one month long narrative.

Patriot Month would bring Americans together, not drive us apart. Commemorating the glories of our past and the inherent and continued greatness of our nation remain popular propositions, no matter what the Democratic left and the too-online right may have you believe. Given the current predilections of the progressive faction that dominates Democratic politics, there is a major opening to claim the mantle of patriotism on the right and potentially attract independent voters who are turned off by the left’s performative anti-Americanism. If conservatives can leave the off-putting internecine debates over what truly makes a ‘real’ American aside and instead embrace a broader, civic-minded American identity, we can make political and cultural strides. Even outside of that, promoting patriotism is a good thing to do for American society and the longevity of our national project. Those on the American right have always embraced this idea and we should continue now.

Americans by and large love our country. They want to identify with it and be proud of it. But they are relentlessly told that it is and has always been a terrible place and its existence a bad thing for the world. That message is blatantly false and most people know it. The key is promulgating the truth: that America is great. That it always has been great. And that it is worth celebrating. Patriot Month would do just that.