Against the Propositional Nation ｜ 2⧸13⧸25
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
152.81725
Summary
Donald Trump was elected because Americans were tired of being hated by their leaders. The real estate billionaire has flaws, but in a moment when politicians on both the left and right were calling the country sexist, racist, lazy, and entitled, Donald Trump was calling to make America great again.
Transcript
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We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight.
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Fast-free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land.
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Wi-Fi available to Airplane members on Equipped Flight.
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Donald Trump was elected because Americans are tired of being hated by their leaders.
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The real estate billionaire has his flaws, but in a moment when politicians on both the left and right
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were calling the country sexist, racist, lazy, and entitled,
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Donald Trump was calling to make America great again.
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The president's second term is off to an impressive start,
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and most of his supporters are simply relieved to have a man who loves the country back in office.
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But with Trump's initial success comes larger questions.
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It's related to what the philosopher Aristotle called telos, or the ultimate objective or end.
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To make America great, we must first understand its purpose, its nature, its context.
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With the election of Donald Trump, a number of ideas about national identity have been completely rejected.
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They want to be a distinct and sovereign country.
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Citizens of the United States don't want to live in a multicultural patchwork with segmented communities
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speaking different languages and celebrating different identities.
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The American people don't want to act as world police,
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sacrificing the blood of their sons and the treasure of their nation
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to impose a global order that puts their home country last.
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Americans don't want the United States to operate as an office park or an economic zone.
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They want their government to put the well-being of Americans first instead of the maximization
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of arbitrary economic measures like the gross domestic product.
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The people of this nation are tired of leaders who belittle and insult them
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We know which progressive identities Americans have rejected,
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but is there one that they can collectively embrace?
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It's not enough to reject multiculturalism, globalism, and economic essentialism.
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To make America great, conservatives and right-wingers must offer an alternative identity
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which binds our nation together and gives it a telos.
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This realization scares many conservatives who have been taught to flee discussions of identity
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Identity is a powerful thing capable of moving men's passions towards both great and terrible deeds.
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It's not to be taken lightly, but for this reason,
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conservatives can't afford to abandon the topic to the Democrats and the political left.
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and will be answered by those who are willing to engage with it.
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If the right abandons the question to progressives out of cowardice,
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then they will live in a world defined by their enemies.
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An unattainable goal towards which the nation is always progressing?
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A set of ideas that anyone and everyone from around the world can adopt and join?
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The propositional nation, one built on an adherence to a series of assertions,
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is the alternative that conservatives have offered my entire life,
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and the default identity that they are now attempting to return to
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with the defeat of the multicultural globalist vision.
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The problem with this definition is that it can't hold up to basic scrutiny.
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So you've always been picky about your produce,
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but now you find yourself checking every label to make sure it's Canadian.
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At Sobeys, we always pick guaranteed fresh Canadian produce first.
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a set of propositions to which anyone can adhere,
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then any set of people should be able to copy those ideas and achieve similar results.
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There's no need for immigrants to travel to America
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or spend time among its people because the people and place aren't special.
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which is an African republic that was founded to give freed slaves
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and free-born American blacks a country of their own,
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absent of the discrimination that existed in the United States at the time.
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The Liberian Constitution was founded on the principles of the American Republic
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and contains most of the key features including separation of powers,
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checks and balances, and its very own copy of the Bill of Rights.
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Despite photocopying the principles and structure of the United States,
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and is ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the entire world.
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This is a result that seems to challenge the core assertion of the propositional nation.
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The propositional nation also reveals its incoherence
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when observing domestic politics in the United States.
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The argument is that anyone who believes in the idea of America
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because this is what defines our identity as citizens.
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But that assertion is never followed to its logical conclusion.
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Ilhan Omar is a Somalian immigrant who serves in the United States Congress
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about the racist and oppressive nature of the people who took her into their home.
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Several media outlets have reported that Omar's second husband
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was in fact her brother who she married in order to commit immigration fraud.
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and promises to prioritize the interests of Somalian immigrants
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the interests of the country of Somalia itself.
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that Omar is not loyal to the idea of America or its principles,
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and yet no one is calling to have her removed from office.
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Anyone who proposed that she should be denaturalized
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much less her rejection of the American proposition
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The propositional nation is just a sloppy feint from conservatives
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meant to dodge the larger and thornier issue of American identity.
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None of its proponents have any intention of doing
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what it would take to enforce their own definition of identity.
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If there is one principle that is held as sacred in the United States,
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it is the ability to publicly reject the American proposition itself
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No one pushing the idea of a propositional nation
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by constant conformity to the ideological dictates of the state
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than any boogeyman that progressives have conjured up.
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The same thing that has defined nations for most of human history.
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the center-left Harvard professor Samuel Huntington,
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Without a clearly identifiable cultural heritage
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but those ideas aren't Gnostic and disembodied.
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The American proposition arises from a specific people,
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