Odd Man Out

At high noon I rushed over to Swamp Rabbit’s shack to read aloud from an essay in the NY Review of Books by the always insightful Fintan O’Toole:

National vanity is arguably dependent on the absence of national pride. To be proud of one’s country is… not to disguise its faults but to want to believe that the country is capable of rising above them. The keynote of national pride is “We’re better than this.” National vanity, on the contrary, is indeed a form of disguise. It uses the mask of greatness to cover up a society’s complex realities. The dark parts of its history and the persistent stains of injustice must be erased. The dignity of self-knowledge is sacrificed to the willed ignorance of inflated self-esteem. Self-belief is replaced by self-delusion.

“It’s too humid to think about that high-falutin’ stuff,” Swamp Rabbit said. “I ain’t even finished my first beer yet.”

But I was still fired up about the quiet purging of the historical record that started when the Trump administration declared war on national park exhibits that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”

In Philadelphia, our hometown, the feds are fighting to permanently erase information about the nine enslaved people who were kept at the President’s House by George Washington. At the Second Bank of the United States, they’ve altered a panel that used to identify Thomas Jefferson as a slaveholder as well as a champion of freedom. At Independence Hall, a virtual tour no longer mentions that “accused fugitives from slavery” were once held there for court hearings.

And then there’s the ongoing campaign to discredit the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, which the Trump gang has accused of using “extreme political activism” “to divide, dispirit, and discourage our citizens.”

“I don’t get it,” Swamp Rabbit said. “If it weren’t for extreme political activity there wouldn’t have been no revolution.”

I told him that the MAGA goons who own the Republican Party are a sensitive bunch. They feel threatened when you expose the rot at the heart of their self-serving ideology, such as it is. They take it personally when you debunk the lies they embrace to justify suppression of ideas they’re too lazy to grapple with.

I said, “Beware of blowhards who, when confronted with evidence that their ideas are flawed, respond by calling you unpatriotic.”

“But they’re the peeps who run this country,” Swamp Rabbit replied. “They see the word ‘slavery’ and they push the delete button. They look in the mirror and see a perfect ’10.’ It don’t matter how ugly they are.”

I couldn’t argue with his summary of the MAGA mindset. He sounded like a swampy version of O’Toole.

All I could say is that visitors to the national historic park in Philly this summer — those who are paying attention — will hear a lot of talk about freedom but see few signs of what a struggle it is to protect democratic institutions, even in the country where the Bill of Rights was written. The purge will continue until something sparks a genuine backlash against MAGA, and that’s not happening yet.

Swamp Rabbit was feeling feisty because his parole officer, Victor Cortez, isn’t due to check up on him anytime soon. He tossed his empty beer can off his porch and fetched two full ones.

“You’d be better off going on a liquid diet,” he said. “It would help you roll with the punches.”

“No thanks,” I said. “I might end up like you — all punched out.”

Footnote: The Philadelphia Inquirer is doing a good job of calling attention to the damage being done by the sneaky federal whitewashers who lurk in the park.