What made America Great
Originally published in Dutch in EW Magazine on July 18th 2022, this article was translated and adapted on the 3rd of September 2022.
Despite an endless torrent of US media coverage on coups, mass shootings, and deeply rooted polarization, until quite recently there was something that made America great. America is the greatest country on earth. This is a conviction that many Americans grow up with. As cliché as it might sound, it contains a grain of truth, although it is not for the reasons typically named.
Lets acknowledge that the United States is far from perfect. The original sin of slavery still echoes through society, and the country was built on a foundation of ethnic cleansing and systematic extermination of Native Americans. The United States was not first to give women the right to vote, and its contemporary political system is not exactly an advertisement for political stability.
Facing your imperfections
What made America great is something else. Throughout its history it has actively engaged with its own imperfections, and through constitutional reform and amendment allowed for citizens to stand up for their rights and have those rights anchored into constitution. No other country has more actively engaged with its own flaws and limitations.
Americans will stand and fight for their rights and principles. Sometimes peacefully, such as MLK or the gay rights movements. Sometimes literally, as during the Civil War, where long held principles collided with the reality of slavery. Americans can protest like no other, and some of the most successful and famous civil rights movement in history find their origin in the United States.
This drive to peacefully demonstrate has translated into a consistently expanding set of civil rights. American democracy started off limited to white men of property, and was only slowly expanded over the centuries. Marches were organized, rights were acquired, and those rights were codified into the constitution. The dynamic way in which principles and rights could be peacefully anchored into the cloth of American society is what made America special, and its what made America great. Unfortunately we recently saw a paradigm shift in this American exceptionalism.
A retreating set of civil rights
Separate of your opinion on abortion, the decision to overturn Roe V Wade is shocking. It is the first time in United States history that an acquired civil right has been repealed by the judiciary. At no point in US history was the United States characterized by a shrinking set of civil rights. In the past some rights had been modified on technical grounds, but to outright repeal a civil right is without precedent. To make this even worse, it is a right that is supported in some capacity by the majority of Americans.
It is worth emphasizing the paradigm shift that this signifies for the United States. Where in the recent past it was possible to fight for your rights, and, with enough support, codify those rights in an expanding constitution, we are now at a place where we are fighting simply to maintain the rights already acquired. The judiciary is willing to impose its own minoritarian vision (in this case a Christian-nationalist vision) on the rest of the country. It is not impossible that it wont stay with the right to an abortion, as ominious signs have appeared around other acquired rights such as gay marriage or contraceptives.
In the span of only a few years the pluriform project known as America has been radically altered. There have always been conservative forces that tried to slow down or even halt the expansion of civil rights, first the Democrats, now the Republicans. But even a halted expansion holds the line at the rights already acquired. In the 245 years that the United States has existed, this has been the red line: acquired civil rights are permanent.
In the year 2022 that red line has been erased.