In my early years in the United States, I watched an unflattering film about the rise of Fox News: Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (2005). One of the analysts put it down to this: “Fox knows there is money in the flag, and the other networks know Fox is on to something.”
Fox was on to something. Just look at how it derailed the established, cosmopolitan news outlets. The same logic applies to Donald Trump’s antiestablishment electoral success. I was reminded of this when attending the Northern Colorado GOP watch party last night and considered what united so many jovial people—forming a sea of red, white, and blue—to squeeze into and overflow the Grainhouse bar in Windsor.
More than any one policy issue and much more than the man himself, the flag and what it represents galvanized Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The identity of a proud, winning United States drew endless crowds to gather and enjoy each other’s company, last night and throughout the electoral cycle. Name-calling bounces right off these people, as they don all manner of MAGA hats, since they recognize their strength in numbers.
The flag still represents the American dream and an attractive community. It only asks that you have an affection for the United States and promote her fundamental value: liberty. Freshly elected Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) gave an energetic speech and underlined the point, when addressing Telemundo Colorado, that people who respect US laws and traditions are welcome.
One person asked me who will take the reins after Trump, but she was missing the point. So long as legacy media commentators obsess over and love to hate Trump, they fail to realize that he is tapping into and channeling a groundswell of sentiment that will long outlast his tenure. The bottom-up Tea Party movement—a manifestation of the stick-it-to-the-man US spirit—remains and has rebranded as “make America great again.”
This parallels the successful Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom. As noted in All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain’s Political Class (2016), whatever the economic arguments might have been, people were motivated by the Union Jack. People vote to signal their values, to affirm their identity. Does anyone care about being an EU citizen? No. What does that even represent? Nothing but bureaucracy, ruling-class arrogance, and rootlessness.
Similarly, the Democratic Party’s themes of so-called joy and inclusion are confusing, to say the least. The irony of their identity politics—with the broad and fragile rainbow coalition—is that when you try to stand for everything and everyone, you stand for nothing and lose your identity and sense of common purpose. Tribal grievances motivate people, but not so much when they come into conflict with each other under the same ticket.
Worse, what eventually happened is that the Kamala Harris campaign, perhaps inadvertently, stood for everything except pride in the United States and her values. That should have been expected with a diversity-hire candidate who openly advocated wealth redistribution and “equity” over equality before the law.
Any identity is by definition exclusionary. Otherwise, it would be meaningless. The American dream still means something and distinguishes the nation from all others on the planet. That is why, for lovers of liberty, there is nowhere to flee to.
I came to the United States as a student from New Zealand in 2003, and I returned to make a home because I believe in the ideal of self-governance, of being one’s own king. Yesterday, those of us here who want in and revere the ideas behind the stars and stripes clung to victory and outnumbered those who wish to dilute even further US exceptionalism and the promise of liberty.
However, the US trajectory is precarious. Many, if not most, idealists observe fading US preeminence and a rising, ominous enemy coalition. Lily Tang Williams—a personal hero—fled communist China 40 years ago and, now based in New Hampshire, ran for the US House of Representatives. True believers in liberty in the US tradition did not prevail in her case, against a DC-swamp enemy. The fight continues, and Lily has generated an immense online following that will remain as this election fades from memory.
Trump is an imperfect representative of the American dream, but he is a representative nonetheless. That dream—represented by Old Glory—motivated me and countless others to settle in the United States, and it motivates the support he enjoys.
Fergus Hodgson
Publisher: Fergus Hodgson, CAIA, is the director of Econ Americas, a financial and economic consultancy. He holds an MBA in finance from Rice University and bachelor’s degrees in economics and political science from Boston University and the University of Waikato. He was the founding editor in chief of the PanAm Post.
