WTH Is Going On with Patriotism? Yascha Mounk on How We Can Revitalize National Pride
What the Hell Is Going On
AEI Podcasts
4.4 • 633 Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2022
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is good old American flag waving patriotism dead, only to be replaced with chauvinistic nationalism, or worse, anti-Americanism? Perhaps thinking of national pride as something rooted in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the U.S.’ proud history is too 20thcentury; maybe it is no longer working? Indeed, in a country in which history and civics get short shrift in education, it should come as no surprise that many under 50 feel no pride, no patriotic sense as Americans. But there may be another way – a new cultural patriotism, in which people have pride in the country they know rather than in the traditions that have spawned national holidays and parades. Will that work?
Yascha Mounk joined Dany and Marc to discuss the findings of his new book The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure (Penguin Press). He discusses the concept of cultural patriotism, the problem of multiculturalism and assimilation. They also debate the metaphor of America’s melting pot, American exceptionalism, and the ideals that make America the best country on earth.
Mounk is one of the world’s leading experts on the crisis of liberal democracy and the rise of populism. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the founder of Persuasion.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | the hell is going on. I don't know what the hell he's talking about. You don't have to know |
| 0:03.4 | what the hell is on it. What hell's the matter with these guys? We don't know what's going on. |
| 0:07.7 | What hell's going on? Who in God's name knows what it's all about. This podcast is brought to you by the American Enterprise Institute. |
| 0:26.4 | If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and share. |
| 0:30.3 | Thanks for listening. Here's our show. |
| 0:34.7 | Hi, I'm Danielle Pekka. |
| 0:36.1 | I'm Martisan. |
| 0:36.8 | Welcome to our podcast. |
| 0:38.2 | What the hell is going on? |
| 0:40.0 | Mark, what the hell this week? |
| 0:42.1 | We're talking about patriotism and nationalism. |
| 0:44.7 | We've been hearing a lot of negative things about nationalism. |
| 0:47.6 | And Yashamong, a friend of this podcast who's been on with us before, so recidivist guest, |
| 0:51.6 | has written a brand new book in defense of patriotism and why |
| 0:55.7 | patriotism is important. And he talks about a particular kind of patriotism we'll get into in our |
| 1:00.1 | interview with him. But I think it's a really important time to have a discussion about patriotism |
| 1:04.8 | because we're hearing constantly these days how America is really all it's cracked up to be, that this country was founded |
| 1:13.2 | to perpetuate racism, that perpetuate slavery, the 1619 project, all the debates about |
| 1:20.1 | CRT in our schools. And there's a, there's a pushback against this. There's a resurgence of |
| 1:26.0 | patriotism in this country and people pushing |
| 1:27.6 | back and saying, you know, no, America's a pretty exceptional place and we need to fight for that. |
| 1:32.2 | What do you think, Dan? So I really, I really like the way that Yasha is thinking about it. We don't, |
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