Thread by @DouthatNYT

Don't fully agree with @matthewwalther here but he has his hands around a crucial problem for American nationalists:
theweek.com/articles/84385…

A different way to look at it would be that America is presently too diverse and polarized and deracinated to enjoy the virtues of nationhood, and yet also too homogenized and centralized to live happily as a pluralistic empire.

Trump is a nationalist but his vision of the nation is sixty years out of date, incompatible with what America has become/is becoming. But it's unclear (at least to me) whether effective statesmanship would seek a new national identity or a more pluralistic + imperial approach.

I wrote a lot about pluralism in the Obama years because this argument, advanced recently by @shadihamid, seemed plausible -- that a common-culture America is never coming back, that managing a "messy and deep pluralism" is the political task now.
americanmind.org/features/the-c…

But watching how left and right have developed since, and the unexpected *centralizing* power of the internet, has made me think that there are also trends that make "living with pluralism" impossible -- that even in their polarization Americans are rejecting decentralization.

Hence my interest in Gaullism -- meaning some kind of nationalist synthesis for the 21st century -- as a possible alternative. But that may be just as difficult to cultivate as a peaceful pluralism.
nytimes.com/2019/05/14/opi…