A Nation of Cheerleaders

From time to time New York Times columnist David Brooks reminds us of why we no longer read David Brooks. 

Let’s see. The American Republic has seen better days. Inflation is running rampant. We are being invaded by hordes of people, running through our porous border. Half of the country despises the other half of the country. The markets have seen better days. We are entering a recession. Our educational establishment considers it more important to teach critical race theory than algebra and calculus. And Stanford University has decided that we should not call ourselves Americans-- for reasons I do not need to explain.

Oh, and let us not ignore the fact that we are being led by brain-damaged fools, who can barely make it through script reading without embarrassing themselves and us.

And then along came Volodymir Zelenskyy, to save the day. The other night the conquering hero of the Ukraine addressed a pep rally at a joint session of Congress. Brooks was inspired; he was almost as giddy as he was when he espied the well pressed trouser crease of one Barack Obama some fifteen years ago.

If you do not have national unity in America, if you do not have unity based on internal coherence, you can find unity by worshiping the same demi-god, the man who is standing up against the great Russian bully.

We are as one with the Ukrainian cause. We are rooting for the underdog and are happy to see Vladimir Putin get what he so richly deserves:

The cameras mostly focused on Volodymyr Zelensky during his address to Congress on Wednesday night, but I focused my attention as much as I could on the audience in the room. There was fervor, admiration, yelling and whooping. In a divided nation, we don’t often get to see the Congress rise up, virtually as one, with ovations, applause, many in blue dresses and yellow ties.

Sure, there were dissenters in the room, but they were not what mattered. Words surged into my consciousness that I haven’t considered for a while — compatriots, comrades, co-believers in a common creed.

For Brooks this means everything, so it probably means nothing. The war in Ukraine is not yet over, and the tide might well shift in favor of Russia.

Zelensky and his fellow Ukrainians have reminded Americans of the values and causes we used to admire in ourselves — the ardent hunger for freedom, the deep-rooted respect for equality and human dignity, the willingness to fight against brutal authoritarians who would crush the human face under the heel of their muddy boots. It is as if Ukraine and Zelensky have rekindled a forgotten song, and suddenly everybody has remembered how to sing it.

Zelensky was not subtle about making this point. He said that what Ukraine is fighting for today has echoes in what so many Americans fought for over centuries. I thought of John Adams, Frederick Douglass, Theodore Roosevelt, George Marshall, Fannie Lou Hamer, the many unsung heroes of the Cold War. His words reminded us that America supports Ukraine not only out of national interest — to preserve a stable liberal world order — but also to live out a faith that is essential to this country’s being and identity. The thing that really holds America together is this fervent idea.

Of course, Zelensky has largely exceeded expectations. And yet, he was here to beg, not to be a great ally. He did not even bother to respect his audience by donning a suit and tie.

In the end, the Zelensky visit turned us into a nation of cheerleaders. We were cheering for our principles, even our ideals, but were the assembled representatives called upon to cheer for America, warts and all, the reaction would sadly have been quite different.

After all, Joe Biden might have rallied the world against Putin, but he has also proved to be divisive to an extreme. Remember him railing about Maga Republicans. Remember him calling Republicans semi-fascists.

True enough, the West has rallied against the Russian bear, but that might just mean that Vladimir Putin miscalculated, grievously. Counting on your enemy’s stupidity is not a winning strategy in the long term.