America and a Dubious Road.

I watched a YouTube video last night made by an American woman currently living in the UK who raised the question: ‘Will American Patriotism Be Its Downfall?’

She began by citing the fact that American children are spoon fed masses of patriotic conditioning from a very early age, referring to school children being required to swear the Oath of Allegiance every morning, the singing of the national anthem, and the proliferation of Star and Stripes on nearly every spare piece of ground; features which most of the rest of the world find pretty damn silly because they’re just not necessary.

She had a lot to say about this – and did so with a commendable sense of balance, I might add – including the fact that she saw nothing wrong with patriotism as long as it doesn’t step over the line into the area of nationalism. There’s a difference between the two, and nationalism – especially when embraced by a country as powerful as the US – can be very dangerous to everybody else in the world and even to itself. (Inevitably, I suppose, Hitler and Nazi Germany was quoted as an example.)

At this point the post could become very long, but I’m too lazy and tired of life to write lengthy tomes these days so I’ll just mention one thing she included in her argument. She pointed out that the USA is very powerful – possibly the most powerful country in the world – but that, with power comes responsibility. It’s another way of saying that if we want the world to be a reasonably sane place, self-interest has to be tempered with an ethical dimension. To any right-minded person, it’s entirely wrong for a country to use its excessive wealth and power only for its own benefit.

This morning I read that Trump has suspended overseas aid (apart from military aid to Israel and Egypt apparently.) That surprised even me.

And so I wonder again where Trump and his cohorts are going to take the US over the next four years. And I’m tempted to think that the much-vaunted ‘special relationship’ between the US and UK is doomed to become an object of faded regard (with thanks to an American called Zoe who coined the phrase.) It certainly sheds new light on the decision to take the UK out of the EU nine years ago.