DEFINING AMERICANISM

Author : C. Bradley Thomson (C. Bradley Thompson is a Research Professor at Clemson University and the Executive Director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He has also been a visiting fellow at Princeton and Harvard universities and at the University of London).

"Americanism is a wide abstraction with a complex if contested meaning. It’s part political philosophy, part culture, part moral virtue, part attitude. Defined most broadly, Americanism is that political philosophy which identifies and defines the way of life and moral character most unique to the people of the United States of America. It prescribes a certain political philosophy and it describes the unique conditions under which that theory was translated into practice by millions of ordinary men and women in late eighteenth and nineteenth-century America.

Americanism is a curious concept that has no foreign counterpart. It suggests that the American identity is defined and shaped by an idea, an “ism,” or an ideology. No other nation has anything quite like it. Americanism, is more than just a culture steeped in historically evolved folkways (i.e., the forms and formalities associated with speech dialects, food, music, dress, architecture etc.).

The principal characteristics of Americanism is to be found most clearly stated in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration was the practical and theoretical symbol of this new ideology. It represented both a heroic action (i.e., a formal declaration to the world of American independence from Great Britain) and a revolutionary idea (i.e., the doctrine of individual rights). It forever associated the American way of life with a social system that recognized, defined and protected the rights of individuals as sacrosanct. Morally, Americanism insisted that men have a right to be free, free to pursue their individual happiness without the interference of others. Politically, it declared that government should be strictly limited to protecting individual rights, which meant creating a sphere of freedom institutionalized by a separation of church and state, school and state, economy and state, and culture and state. Economically, it said that individuals should be free to produce and exchange their goods and services free of government control, and that they should be able to keep and/or dispose of their wealth without it being taken by the government. Socially, it was perhaps best captured by another distinctly American colloquialism: the idea of rugged individualism.

In sum, Americanism meant a principled commitment to freedom. It was associated with the moral and political principles of a society in which individuals were morally sovereign and left free of government interference to be self-owning, self-starting, self-reliant, and self-fulfilling. It meant self-government in the fullest sense of the term (i.e., morally, politically, socially, and economically).

The meaning of Americanism today, however, is very different. To the extent that the term is even still used, its meaning has been highjacked by both the Left and the Right. The Left most often identifies Americanism with multiculturalism, relativism, environmentalism, regulation, and welfarism, in other words, with progressivism. The Right typically identifies Americanism with Christianity, school prayer, tradition, family values, and community standards, in other words, with social conservatism. None of these values are, however, uniquely American. In fact, in one form or another, they all have a distinctly European provenance that is set in direct opposition to the native meaning of Americanism.

We must always keep in mind, however that Americanism in practice (i.e., the reality of life in America day-to-day) has no doubt sometimes stood in stark relief to the ideal of Americanism. It is certainly true that the philosophy of Americanism has not always been applied equally to all Americans at all times and in all ways. Even the most laissez-faire period of American history was full of controls, regulations, and supports of one kind or another. More importantly, the wicked and tragic history of chattel slavery in America followed by the institutionalized discrimination of African-Americans after their emancipation are the most obvious examples of how Americans have not always lived up to the ideal of Americanism.

Reclaiming the original and proper meaning of this one word -Americanism-is vitally important today because its definition will play an important role in determining how the American people view their past, present, and future. In a sense, the idea of Americanism captures the essence of who and what we are as a nation not only at the political level but also at a deeper psychological level. At stake in this battle to define a single word is nothing less than the future of America itself. The outcome shall determine whether the people of this nation will continue their descent into statism or whether they will recover the original spirit of liberty that first breathed life into what Abraham Lincoln once called mankind’s “last best hope of earth."

According to Trump

"Our country lost its way when we stopped putting the American people first. We got here because we switched from a policy of Americanism focusing on what’s good for America’s middle class to a policy of globalism, focusing on how to make money for large corporations who can move their wealth and workers to foreign countries all to the detriment of the American worker and the American economy. We reward companies for offshoring, and we punish companies for doing business in America and keeping our workers employed. This is not a rising tide that lifts all boats. This is a wave of globalization that wipes out our middle class and our jobs. We need to reform our economic system so that, once again, we can all succeed together, and America can become rich again. That’s what we mean by America First."