Tammy Duckworth: Tucker Carlson Doesn’t Know What
Patriotism Is
Neither
does President Trump.
By Tammy Duckworth
Ms.
Duckworth is a Democratic senator from Illinois.
·
July 9, 2020, 5:41 p.m. ET
A little over 240 years ago, two of my
ancestors put on the uniform of George Washington’s Continental Army and
marched into battle, willing to die if it meant bringing their fledgling nation
inches closer to independence. Centuries later, in 1992, I followed in their
footsteps and joined the Army.
Even knowing how my tour in Iraq would
turn out, even knowing that I’d lose both my legs in a battlefield just north
of Baghdad in late 2004, I would do it all over again. Because if there’s
anything that my ancestors’ service taught me, it’s the importance of
protecting our founding values, including every American’s right to speak out.
In a nation born out of an act of protest, there is nothing more patriotic than
standing up for what you believe in, even if it goes against those in power.
Our
founders’ refusal to blindly follow their leader was what I was reflecting on this
Fourth of July weekend, when some on the far right started attacking me for
suggesting that all Americans should be heard, even those whose opinions differ
from our own. Led by the Fox News host Tucker Carlson and egged on by President
Trump, they began questioning my love for the country I went to war to protect,
using words I never actually said and ascribing a position to me that I do not
actually hold.
Mr.
Carlson disingenuously claimed that because I expressed an openness to “a
national dialogue” about our founders’ complex legacies, people like me
“actually hate America.” One night later, he claimed that I called George
Washington a traitor even though I had unambiguously answered no when asked
whether anyone could justify saying that he was.
Then he argued that changes to
monuments of our founders “deserve a debate,” which, somehow, was different and
more acceptable to him than the “national dialogue” that led him to question my
patriotism just 24 hours earlier.
Setting aside the fact that the right
wing’s right to lie about me is one of the rights I fought to defend, let me be
clear: I don’t want George Washington’s statue to be pulled down any more than
I want the Purple Heart that he established to be ripped off my chest. I never
said that I did.
But while I would risk my own safety to
protect a statue of his from harm, I’ll fight to my last breath to defend every
American’s freedom to have his or her own opinion about Washington’s flawed
history. What some on the other side don’t seem to understand is that we can
honor our founders while acknowledging their serious faults, including the
undeniable fact that many of them enslaved Black Americans.
Because while we have never been
a perfect union, we have always
sought to be a more
perfect union
— and in order to do so, we cannot whitewash our missteps and mistakes. We must
learn from them instead.
But
what I actually said isn’t the reason Mr. Carlson and Mr. Trump are questioning
my patriotism, nor is it why they’re using the same racist insults against me
that have been slung my way time and again in years past, though they have
never worked on me.
They’re doing it because they’re
desperate for America’s attention to be on anything other than Donald Trump’s
failure to lead our nation, and because they think that Mr. Trump’s electoral
prospects will be better if they can turn us against one another. Their goal
isn’t to make — or keep — America great. It’s to keep Mr. Trump in power,
whatever the cost.
It’s
better for Mr. Trump to have you focused on whether an Asian-American woman is
sufficiently American than to have you mourning the 130,000 Americans killed by
a virus he claimed would disappear in February. It’s better for his campaign to
distract Americans with whether a combat veteran is sufficiently patriotic than
for people to recall that this failed commander in chief has still apparently done
nothing about reports of Russia putting bounties on the heads of American
troops in Afghanistan.
Mr. Trump and his team have made the
political calculation that, no matter what, they can’t let Americans remember
that so many of his decisions suggest that he cares more about lining his
pockets and bolstering his political prospects than he does about protecting
our troops or our nation.
They should know, though, that attacks
from self-serving, insecure men who can’t tell the difference between true
patriotism and hateful nationalism will never diminish my love for this country
— or my willingness to sacrifice for it so they don’t have to. These titanium
legs don’t buckle.
The hateful vision for America parroted
by Mr. Trump and Mr. Carlson will not win. Their relentless efforts to drive
wedges between us will not work forever. We are too resilient a nation, too
diverse a people, to let them.
In his farewell address, George Washington not only
recognized his own imperfections, he also urged Americans to “guard against the
impostures of pretended patriotism” and be wary of excessive partisanship. In
the generations since, too many patriots, including many in my own family, have
sacrificed too much to let our guard down now.
So when Tucker Carlson questions the
patriotism of those willing to sacrifice for his freedom, or when Donald Trump
promotes those smears — after having threatened to
veto a pay raise for our troops to try to ensure the military continues
honoring Confederate traitors who took up arms against our Union — remember
Washington’s words.
Remember that part of what has always
made America not just great but good is that every American has the right to
question those in charge. Anyone claiming to stand up for “patriotic” values
should recognize that, because, without it, the country these impostor patriots
claim to love so much would not exist.
Our nation deserves leaders mature and
secure enough not to race-bait or swift-boat anyone who dares disagree with
them. After these past four years, and especially after these past four months,
it’s clearer than ever that we must choose public servants who will focus on
the serious issues facing our country — from the spread of the coronavirus to
systemic racism to foreign adversaries threatening our troops’ lives — rather
than cynical bullies who use schoolyard tactics to distract from their own
shortcomings.
So while I would put on my old uniform
and go to war all over again to protect the right of Tucker Carlson and Donald
Trump to say offensive things on TV and Twitter, I will also spend every moment
I can from now until November fighting to elect leaders who would rather do
good for their country than do well for themselves.
Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) is a
Democratic senator from Illinois.
