On the left’s hysterical reaction to Rebecca Long-Bailey’s notion of “progressive patriotism”: a longish thread 
Reading the British left’s hysterical reactions to the simple mention of “progressive patriotism” by Labour leadership candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey (@RLong_Bailey), one may truly be tempted to think that the left is doomed in this country.
The quasi-consensus among the left seems to be that talk of “progressive patriotism” is “fascistic”, “racist”, “the language of the far right”, “nationalist bull***t”, etc. It shows the extent to which the left has lost touch not only with reality – but even with its own history.
As a general principle, it is worth restating the obvious: that patriotism ≠ nationalism (whereby the latter is understood as aggressive chauvinism).
As none other than George Orwell put it after WW2 (when chauvinism was, well, a big deal): “By patriotism, I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force upon other people” (cont’d).
George Orwell: “Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism on the other hand is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure power and more prestige, not for himself but for [his] nation”.
Or as Charles de Gaulle put it: “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first”. Pretty simple concept, innit?
Now, moving on from the abstract to the concrete, what’s even more striking about the contemporary “woke” leftists’ revulsion of patriotism is their ignorance of the crucial role played by progressive patriotism/nationalism throughout left/socialist history.
For mercy’s sake, we’ll leave aside the developing world, where practically all socialist endeavours were – and still are – connected to struggles for national liberation/self-determination. Guess whose slogan was “Patria o muerte” (“Homeland or death”)? Hint: not Hitler.
Even if we limit our analysis to core capitalist countries, history shows that “progressives best mobilized for social justice when they spoke in the name of national solidarity rather than focusing exclusively on class-based interests or on abstract notions of justice”.
@NoamGidron, a social scientist at the University of Jerusalem (we can safely assume he’s not a Nazi) has written a great article about this: vox.com/the-big-idea/2….
Gidrom notes that “left has forgotten the basic political argument that served it so well in the past: that out of the ties that bind together our national communities emerges a deep commitment to the well-being, welfare, and social esteem of our fellow citizens”.
“This recognizes a basic moral intuition: We have deep and encompassing obligations to those we consider our own, based on a shared sense of membership in a community of fate – or more simply, based on our shared national identity”.
By focusing on global humanitarian concerns, as laudable as the intentions may be, the contemporary left “ignores the bounded sense of national ‘we-ness’ that motivates people to invest in the welfare of others”.
Gidrom then provides a number of examples in which progressives and socialists throughout the West harnessed the theme of national solidarity to successfully advance their cause. (What follows are mostly direct quotes from the article).
In 1920s Sweden, for example, by “embracing concepts such as ‘people’ and ‘nation’ that the radical right was exploiting successfully elsewhere, the [Social Democratic] SAP was able to claim the mantle of national unity and social solidarity during the chaos of the early 1930s”.
While other left-wing parties considered themselves first and foremost representatives of the working class, the organizing concept of the Swedish Social Democrats was captured by one of its slogans, “the people’s home”.
“There is no more patriotic party than [the Social Democrats since] the most patriotic act is to create a land in which all feel at home”, remarked that party’s leader, as he attempted to reach out to traditionally conservative constituencies like farmers.
Such rhetoric helped the Swedish Social Democrats build a broad center-left political coalition that has dominated Swedish politics since World War II.
In both the United Kingdom and the United States, too, progressive advocates gained traction when they called for social justice as an expression of “the fairness and solidarity of the national character”, in the words of Oxford historian Ben Jackson.
The Beveridge Report of 1942, which laid the foundations for the British welfare state, appealed not to abstract moral principles but to “peculiarly British” convictions, in Beveridge’s own words.
These convictions included “a minimum income for subsistence when wages fail for any reason: a minimum of provision for children, a minimum of health, of housing, of education”.
In the United States, New Deal architect Franklin D. Roosevelt justified his attacks on the excessive power of the rich not only as measures designed to benefit the poor, but in the name of the nation as a whole – an attempt to create “a safer, happier, more American America”.
In his efforts to reconfigure political institutions in favour of the less well-off, FDR famously embraced the hatred of the rich. But he did so first and foremost not in the name of sectorial interests but rather because it was, in his own words, “the American thing to do”.
These examples show that, Gidrom writes, that “there is strong reason to believe that today, just as in the past, progressives could and should once again aim to build diverse electoral coalitions based on national solidarity”.
Especially considering that most people in the West already have a progressive understanding of patriotism. Gidrom cites a study showing that that “this group is characterized by both strong national pride *and* an inclusive vision of the national community”.
This group expresses a high degree of pride in the nation-state (expressed in devotion to national institutions ranging from sports teams to democratic bodies), and perceives membership in the national community as based on subjective feeling of belonging.
The lesson for Gidrom is that “national solidarity is not a threat to progressives but, as others have already noted, a potential resource – and one the center left ignores at its peril”.
Unlike abstract appeals to global humanitarian concerns, national solidarity rests on the solid foundations of strong national attachments. Unlike narrow class-based appeals, it opens the door to broad electoral coalitions.
Gidrom concludes by noting that “the progressive challenge of our time lies not in dismissing national pride but in harnessing national solidarity in order to create a fairer, more just society”. The survival of the left – in the UK and elsewhere – depends on this.
END OF THREAD
