Nearly a century ago, the noted journalist, cultural critic, essayist, and—this is important: satirist— H.L. Mencken wrote of his fellow Americans, sounding very much like a British journalist dispatched to our sprawling land to take its pulse and assess its mood, “What makes America charming is precisely the Americans…They are, by long odds, the most charming people that I have ever encountered in this world.”
Knowing better than to completely trust Mencken’s often pointed satire, I was waiting for a punch line or at the very least an elaboration of his almost chirpy salute to the American persona. It didn’t take long:
“They have the same charm that one so often notes in a young girl of seventeen or eighteen, and perhaps it is grounded upon the same qualities: “artlessness, great seriousness, extreme self-consciousness, a fresh and innocent point of view, a disarming and ingratiating ignorance.”
History has served up a long century of calamities since Mencken penned those lines in his essay, “On Being an American.” America, like most all the rest of the world, hasn’t escaped some fraying around its edges, what with two world wars, wars-turned-debacles in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the hollowing out of the working class as globalization took root and offshored millions of jobs.
Brooks’s feeling is shared by millions of his fellow Americans who wake up approaching the news every morning as if they’re the first to come upon an airplane crash in a nearby field, full of trepidation for what they will find.
Through it all, however, America maintained a baseline reputation for the good intentions, generosity, and can-do spirit that Mencken and long before him, the French diplomat and political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville (“Democracy in America”) acknowledged as fundamental to the nation’s identity.
Americans’ “fresh and innocent point of view” has (most) always lent itself to limiting the incursions of government and conferring on every citizen the rights to life, liberty, and due process through every facet of the legal system.
It brings to mind the maxim often erroneously attributed to Winston Churchill, nevertheless eliciting knowing nods to this day by students of American history: “The Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing—once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” (The line was actually given shape in a few different forms by the late Israeli Prime Minister Abba Eban, who didn’t single out Americans in observing, “Nations do behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.”)
Which brings us to our current era, in which the world looks on as the president of the United States issues bellicose warnings that he just may seize or otherwise, through economic warfare, annex the land of sovereign nations who are allies in every imaginable way (Canada, Greenland, Panama). Alongside him is the grim reaper of this age, a so-called “efficiency expert” who in barely two months has managed to dismantle entire government and humanitarian service agencies with mere keystrokes, later gloating about how he spends his weekends “putting them through the wood chipper.”
Is this the America that has stood, its various missteps notwithstanding, as the chief hope and symbol of human freedom since its visionary founding nearly 250 years ago? Or are we simply once again in an era of “exhausting all other alternatives” before we turn a corner toward the “right thing” that is in accord with the good cheer, kindness and generosity America has long represented to the peoples of the world?
Many nations, a large number of our historical allies among them, fear not—and that fear represents a sea change in modern international relations.
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“Speak softly, and carry a big stick” was President Teddy Roosevelt’s oft-repeated guiding principle in conducting the affairs of state. Two words carry a lot of water in that line: “softly” and “carry.”
“Softly” as a means of courtesy and constraint, reflecting your own dignity and affording others the same. Assuming a default stance that others are as well-intentioned as you are.
“Carry” is notable for the stick being held, inactive. Roosevelt didn’t say “wield.” You have the stick with you because yes, the world can be dangerous and people can act in bad faith, and sometimes one is forced to wield that stick or perish.
Fast forward to 2025 and we see our relations with most of the world currently being whipsawed by multiple rounds of on-and-off tariffs and suggestions of seizing sovereign nations, with the speaking our president and many in his administration have done about them full of invective, bullying and grievance.
“For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” President Trump declared in his recent Rose Garden speech announcing huge new tariffs on some 90 nations (most which he has since rescinded due to pressure from financial markets).
The language was jarring both for its violent imagery and bizarre notion that America, the most fantastically successful superpower in world history, has in actuality been a long-suffering victim.
Then this most curious line about the origins of the United States income tax: “In 1913, for reasons unknown to mankind, they established the income tax so that citizens, rather than foreign countries, would start paying the money necessary to run our government.”
Somewhere in the president’s brain, he has come to the conviction that other governments around the world should be “paying the money necessary to run our government.” There is a word for that in history, know mostly to mob bosses who have flourished through the ages: “extortion.”
Perhaps that is why he included, among the many other countries he required to join in that effort, the three-island collective of “Saint Pierre and Miquelon,” who were due to pay 50% tariffs on the goods they sell to the U.S. until the later rescission.
You can be excused, since I am excusing myself as I write, for not ever having heard of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, whose 5,888 residents (2011 census), French citizens all, live off the coast of Newfoundland, on islands described by Wikipedia as “mostly barren rock.” Unsurprisingly, the islands’ chief export is “processed crustaceans,” which they apparently send more of to us than we send iPhones and the like to them.
Such trade imbalances are at the root of the president’s denunciations of the nations who are “raping and pillaging” us, revealing such a profound misconception of international trade that it begat this recent “New York Times” headline, “‘Totally Silly.’ Trump’s Focus on Trade Deficit Bewilders Economists.”
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Such well-deserved sardonicism aside, there is a decidedly dark note undergirding all of the above. Upbraiding allies for their perceived failings. Withdrawing from international treaties. Cutting off funds for our traditional lead role in humanitarian assistance to dispossessed peoples (many of whom HAVE been “raped and pillaged” by colonial powers for centuries). Berating our NATO strategic partners.
All of it adheres to a model of naked power politics that has left even allies feeling they are beset by bitter, Putinesque adversaries rather than centuries-long friends.
It is America donning the black hat, voting in accord with arch villains Russia and North Korea at the United Nations to refuse condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That and various other dramatic retreats from America’s historical role as leader of the free world led to this previously inconceivable statement from newly elected German chancellor Friedrich Merz:
“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA. I never thought I would have to say something like this on a television program.”
But say it he did, and the conservative former Republican commentator David Brooks was among those who took notice. Brooks finds himself almost in a state of mourning over the abrupt change of tone in America’s both foreign and domestic relations. His lead paragraphs in a recent “Atlantic” magazine piece include these somber notes:
“…all my life I have had a certain idea about America. I have thought of America as a deeply flawed nation that is nonetheless a force for tremendous good in the world….Until January 20, 2025, I didn’t realize how much of my very identity was built on this faith in my country’s goodness—on the idea that we Americans are partners in a grand and heroic enterprise, that our daily lives are ennobled by service to that cause. Since January 20, as I have watched America behave vilely—toward our friends in Canada and Mexico, toward our friends in Europe, toward the heroes in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office—I’ve had trouble describing the anguish I’ve experienced. Grief? Shock? Like I’m living through some sort of hallucination? Maybe the best description for what I’m feeling is moral shame: To watch the loss of your nation’s honor is embarrassing and painful.”
Brooks’s feeling is shared by millions of his fellow Americans who wake up approaching the news every morning as if they’re the first to come upon an airplane crash in a nearby field, full of trepidation for what they will find.
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It’s hard to imagine America ever wending its way back to the “fresh and innocent point of view” that Mencken beheld a century ago. History has chastened us, as it does every person and nation who survives its youth. Death of innocence by a thousand cuts is the price we pay for maturity.
That said, “innocence” is not the same as “goodness,” and innocence lost does not take goodness with it. We have a choice to make as people living in freedom, a choice about what we embrace and pledge our allegiance to. Will we continue down this road of constraining freedoms, quashing dissent, withdrawing support for the oppressed, for the health of our planet, for the eternal verities of compassion, empathy, and trust in the underlying goodness of the human heart?
What kind of nation do we want to be? Spewing invective at all who will not do our bidding, or spreading goodness as our superpower, befitting the superpower status the free world has willingly bequeathed on us over this century past? It is the goodness of the shining city on a hill that a previous Republican president described in a poetry of possibility and aspiration, rather than vengeance and withdrawal.
The choice, in this democracy that still endures for us, is still very much ours.
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PLEASE NOTE: Writing part of this post on a cross-country plane trip yesterday, I inadvertently hit the “Publish” rather than “Update Draft” button as I was closing up my laptop to prepare for landing. Realizing my mistake, I quickly canceled the publication so it did not appear on the Internet. But if you are among my subscribers via the WordPress platform, you received that draft, very unfinished version and perhaps read it, thinking it complete. It was not. Now it is. Apologies!
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Thank you for another great post, Andrew. Shame, grief, sadness. May these feelings that you have so beautifully articulated propel us towards a better country.
Thanks Al; these wrestlings are new and highly complicated. The phrase “I never thought I’d see…” is one I never thought I and millions of others, not only here but around the world, would be uttering. Carry on, Brother!
The Phoenix of Greek mythology is said to rise from the ashes of its predecessor, which set fire to itself when its reign has come to an end. These times do feel mythic, no? I’m pretty sure there is a lot more burning to come. Whatever small actions I can do now will have an eye towards what can rise from the ashes. Perhaps past my lifetime. It gives me something to hope for.
Exactly right, Dennis. Great quakes, great fires, great floods have a way of concentrating the mind. This shakeup of the world order is nothing less than that in the political realm. Where it goes from here? So difficult to tell, and indeed, it could, probably will be, decades, if not many lifetimes, before it shakes out. (And then it will be on to something else. That last Gatsby line, again and again…)
Thanks? Andrew, what a song! I think that marginalized groups lost their innocence a long time ago, but, like you this has been devastating for me. I too believed “flawed but a force for good.” Thank you for sowing hope: “innocence lost does not take goodness with it.” May this be G8d’s will. and may we act in partnership with kindred spirits for bending the arc to Justice
Songs about America have for the most part described a place of hope and positivity. Woody Guthrie sang of an America that was a land for everyone no matter who they were or where they lived. John Denver sang about American country roads as a route back to his home. In the 2001 World Series, shortly after 9-11, Ray Charles’ moving rendition of “America the Beautiful” captured the coming together of a nation united in mourning. Also, shortly after 9-11, Alan Jackson sang that faith, hope and love would get us through the pain inflicted upon us the morning when the world stopped turning. Neil Diamond sang of an America that welcomed immigrants with open arms and good hearts. Faith Hill sang of an American heart that beats strongest during the hardest times. Could any of these songs resonate today when so many in power see hate, retribution, prejudice, and callousness as the cornerstone of their new nation? I just don’t know anymore. It’s certainly not Lincoln’s America. It’s neither conceived in liberty and equality nor one that cares a hoot about our better angels. Nonetheless, I pray it’s just a passing thing which in years to come will be reminder of how fragile freedom can be. I hope we can move forward and find ourselves living in a kinder, more tender nation.
I lived in France from 1974-77, arriving shortly after the Nixon impeachment news. My new French friends were amused as I reported American shock and horror at the corruption. That Americans would be surprised and dismayed by political corruption from their leader was attributed to our innocence and naivite about the world, thought the French. Clearly our “rose-colored-glasses” view of the world image has been crushed by The Donald with his black hat and authoritarian, bullying approach to the world. It is shameful at least and leading to ever more dangerous consequences for our country and for western democracies. Congressional Republicans and The Supreme Court must cease their willingness to enable this mad tyrant.
Yes, Margo, I heard from another friend who suggested THAT song, when she listened to it in the context of this post: “I started sobbing.” I had a similar response when she sent it to me. Sometimes music just does that—all the more in the extreme circumstance of feeling the loss of one’s country. Thanks for staying faithful in all the ways you do.
Clairebob, I feel like I’ve always been patriotic, but never more so than now, when we are threatened with losing so much of what has made this the country it is, as flawed as it is. So to the degree this dismal circumstance has lit a fire under millions of people, it is not a complete loss, though we must admit it could wind up being so. We are arrayed against powerful forces who have a very clear picture of where they want to take the country, and they may yet succeed. How badly we want them not to, and how hard we are willing to fight for it, will determine where it all ends. Daunting, but necessary.
Jay, it has been evident for a while now that the Mad King and his minions have been spoiling for the fight with the Supreme Court that will determine whether we are a nation of laws or of personality and unfettered executive power. The flashpoint seems to be here, in the matter of the innocents shipped to the hellhole in El Salvador. I’m not counting on Congressional Republicans in the least, other than the usual “concern” expressed by Susan Collins and a few other tepid respondees from among their ranks. But the Supes, having ruled 9-0 for the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia (and he’s just one of many more that enterprising journalists have uncovered as having been abducted and removed without any due process), are now on record for where they stand on this matter, and Trump & his people seem unmoved on their end. So the much vaunted “constitutional crisis” may just be upon us very soon. How it ends is anyone’s guess. You perchance got one?