WHEN PATRIOTISM IS REALLY A CULT OF PERSONALITY.
Theodore Roosevelt famously stated that “Patriotism is loyalty to the land, not loyalty to the President.”
One of the first examples of nationalism that was a cult of personality was Nazi Germany. Hitler and the Nazis said that, “We are nationalists, because we, as Germans, love Germany.” But there was also an oath, “I consecrate my life to Adolf Hitler.” Hitler, himself, was not an imposing figure, but he could mesmerize an audience by telling them what they wanted to hear and gesticulating wildly.
Fast-forward 72 years and a man with a hairstyle that takes denial of baldness to obsequious levels, as President. A man who said that he would Make America Great Again. Was America ever great? Well, the 1960s and 1960s have been romanticized with pictures of young men driving Mustangs and Corvettes, wearing leather jackets, t-shirts and jeans, oil and gasoline being cheap. The USA emerged from the war largely unscathed. Britain had been weakened, and the USA was a capitalist superpower that took it upon itself to be the global anti-communist patrol. After Chairman Mao proclaimed the People’s Republic of China, the USA helped rebuild Japan and take care of its defence not because of remorse over the atomic bombings, but to have a capitalist-democratic counterweight to China in the Pacific.
American patriotism is typically very loud, and has flag-waving with people chanting, “USA! USA!” or, “Four More Years! Four More Years!” for their president.
The Weimar Republic was peculiar in that, yes, the Nazis held the greatest number of seats in the Bundestag, but not enough to be able to form government in their own right. Hitler was not elected to the Bundestag (he didn’t become a German citizen until 1932) before becoming Chancellor. Nazi Germany was about the cult of Hitler as much as anything else.
Those who support trump are not patriotic Americans, they are people who rally around a person they see as their leader, and hold onto the preposterous notion that he is their president. Never mind that trump is not in the White House anymore, and if he were elected in 2024, he would be the second president since Grover Cleveland to serve two inconsecutive terms.
The same is occurring in Australia, with the minority of people who support the great idiot, Hanson. Hanson is viewed by some as a true Australian. Then, we had the potato headed pipped at the post wannabe leader declare a Greens politician an enemy of the state. No, he is NOT an enemy of the state, Potato Head, he is opposed to your draconian measures! Some say that Hanson is their saviour, to which I say, “Saviour from what? Relevance deprivation?”
What has been labelled patriotism has become diluted to following a person’s idea of what is patriotic and following that person.