The Meaning Of Patriotism
The Meaning Of Patriotism
This July Fourth, two Republican women are keeping the flame of this republic alive.
To see what is in front of our noses is a constant challenge, and perhaps never more so in a time of such awful post-truth polarization. But what happened in the January 6 hearings this past week will, in my view, be seen one day as a watershed moment either in the history of this country’s revival as a liberal democracy or in this republic’s rapid collapse.
Two women, Liz Cheney and Cassidy Hutchinson, went back and forth, asking and answering questions, slowly, calmly, and methodically laying out a story of an actual attempt by a president of the United States to rally and lead an armed mob to assault the Congress to overturn an election. Yes, I just wrote that sentence.
Hutchinson’s testimony added critical facts to the record: that Trump knew full well what the mob was intending to do in advance; and knew that they were armed: “You know, I don’t fucking care that they have weapons. They’re not there to hurt me.” He knew what he was attempting was criminal; tried physically to lead the mob in their rampage; and when he was foiled, egged on the attack, and refused to quiet or quell the mob for hours — even as it threatened to kill his own vice president. There is no way now to deny that Trump was behind all of it, uniquely responsible.
In the face of this, so many Republican men have kept quiet, caved, slunk away, equivocated, or changed the subject. So many, like Tucker Carlson, have responded with smears and foul lies. So many have refused to testify, or dodged subpoenas. These sickening cowards wouldn’t vote to impeach after the grossest attack on the Constitution in history; and wouldn’t cooperate with the committee.
But two Republican women faced our hideous reality this week — even if it meant the obliteration of their careers, and being subject to real threats of violence. And let us pause to note just how Republican these two women are. Cheney is the daughter of the former vice president, a man who once defined Republicanism; she represents Wyoming, the most Republican state out of 50; she’s pro-life, defended torture, never saw a war she didn’t want to start; opposed even her own sister’s same-sex marriage; and voted with Trump 93 percent of the time, more than the woman who ousted her from House leadership, Elise Stefanik.
Hutchinson, for her part, was at the heart of the Trump world. She ascended from mere intern — working in the offices of both Ted Cruz and the House minority whip — to become the primary assistant to Trump’s chief-of-staff, Mark Meadows. If she dyed her hair blonde, she could read the news on Fox.
Hutchinson had a lot to lose by testifying — as women seem to in general compared to men:
[T]here is evidence that women suffer more direct retaliation as whistleblowers. One study in 2008 found that women who reported wrongdoing within their organizations experienced more retaliation than men who did the same. And, while higher-ranking men who reported wrongdoing experienced less retaliation, higher-ranking women were not as insulated.
And notice the tone of the exchange between the two women. In a world of hyperbolic, pontificating males, Cheney asked clear, direct, empirical questions, and Hutchinson replied with the same attention to detail, the same surety of voice, the same care not to exaggerate, and to get things right. Yes, some of it was hearsay — but Hutchinson herself took pains to note when it was. And both, it seemed to me, understood their grave responsibility.
This is the Republican Party I used to respect. This is the conservatism I believe in. A conservatism whose first tasks are the defense of the Constitution, the rule of law, and a belief in objective truth.
Like Margaret Thatcher in her day, Liz Cheney has a steel stronger than most men, and similar courage. In her superb speech at the Reagan Library this week, Cheney also emphasized the feminine qualities that made this week historic:
I come to this choice [between Trump and the Constitution] as a mother, committed to ensuring that my children and their children can continue to live in an America where the peaceful transfer of power is guaranteed.
And she paid tribute to the women, often low on the DC totem pole, who rose to the challenge of citizenship, when so many powerful men failed:
I’ve been incredibly moved by young women who have come forward to testify, some who worked on the Trump campaign, some who worked in the Trump White House, some who worked in offices on Capitol Hill, all of whom knew immediately that what had happened must never happen again … Little girls across the country are seeing what it really means to love your country, what it really means to be a patriot. And so I want to speak to every young girl who may be watching tonight. The power is yours and so is the responsibility.
Listen to it all. It’s a speech that in a better world would mark the emergence of the first woman president. It’s a speech that is calling this country and the Republican Party to pull back from the abyss we reached in 2016 and have stared perilously at ever since. It’s a speech calling a party to let go of this monster, to leave the cult, and to believe in their country again rather than this lowlife disgrace of a president.
On this July 4, I just want to say as a naturalized American, that the courage and integrity of these Republican women give me hope. They have put their country before their party and the Constitution before a mob leader. They may be our last best hope that this republic, the rule of law, and the simple truth will survive us.
God bless them. And God save America.
(Note to readers: This is an excerpt of The Weekly Dish. If you’re already a subscriber, click here to read the full version. This week’s issue also includes: my criticism of the CDC and Biden over their pathetic response to monkeypox; a delightful discussion with Jennifer Senior on the nature of friendship; reader dissents over my defense of drag queens; more dissents over my views on Roe and trans extremism; five principled quotes about Trump for our Yglesias Award; 15 links to Substack posts we liked this week, half of them about abortion; two examples of a Hathos Alert; a Mental Health Break of a heavy-metal count-along for kids; a patriotic window view from the Midwest; and, as always, the results of the View From Your Window contest — with a new challenge. Subscribe for the full Dish experience!)
From a reader on the brink of subscribing:
I caught you on “Real Time” last Friday. I am a conservative Democrat (yes, we still exist!) and a Christian minister, and I want to simply say how much I appreciated your thoughtfulness. We differ on some issues, but I truly enjoyed your erudite and well-thought-out positions and dialog. If we had more like you and Katie Herzog, we could find a social “center” and return to civility. I may just have to subscribe to your website!
ICYMI
I recently appeared on Triggernometry, the political podcast in the UK. You can listen here, or watch below:
I also spoke with another British outlet, The Telegraph, answering questions like, “Is populism conservative?” “To what extent is the Republican Party Trump’s Party?” “And are the Democrats lacking in political talent?” You can watch here:
And The Band Plays On
It has happened again. A virus has jumped from animals to humans and then from human to human. We are beginning to see the scope of its spread in the West. It’s a variety of smallpox — monkeypox — and, though unlikely to kill anyone who is not immuno-compromised, it’s still a nasty STI and behaving in new ways we do not yet fully understand.
It seems to appear in the genital areas — basically, penises and buttholes — but not so readily across the entire body, as has been seen before in Africa. And, just like HIV, it has gotten a foothold first among men who have sex with men. It broke out just before the mass gatherings of Pride month, when crowded dance floors of shirtless men have been ubiquitous. Where I live in the summer, Provincetown, we are about to see tens of thousands of gay men descend, almost certainly spawning another viral epidemic. Here’s a candid video of what many of those men can expect:
And all the government entities who are designated to tackle exactly this kind of disease spread, the FDA and the CDC, are — once again — failing. Just like HIV. Just like Covid. They have learned nothing.
This is particularly maddening because monkeypox is not like HIV and Covid, for which we had, at first, precious few treatments or vaccines. It is a virus well known to the US government, and since 2007, the US has spent a cool $2 billion of taxpayer’s money in researching, developing and manufacturing a monkeypox vaccine, called JYNNEOS. And we actually already have a million JYNNEOS doses “filled, finished and ready for administration”— enough to vaccinate 500,000 people. Since the virus is currently concentrated among a specific population — men who have sex with men — a speedy pro-active vaccination program for that population makes a huge amount of sense — for them and to protect everyone else from a virus that could become endemic. If we act quickly, we could snuff this out before it takes a hold.
So where are these million doses?
(Read the rest of this post here, for paid subscribers)
New On The Dishcast: Jennifer Senior
Jennifer was a long-time staff writer at New York magazine and a daily book critic for the NYT. Her own book is the bestseller, All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood. She’s now a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she won the 2022 Pulitzer for Feature Writing. In this episode we focus on her essay, “It’s Your Friends Who Break Your Heart.”
For two clips of our convo — on why friends with different politics are increasingly rare, on how Jesus died for his friends — head over to our YouTube page. Listen to the whole episode here. That link takes you to a new transcript from our episode with the legendary Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, along with further reader debate over the demise of Roe and my response to readers over trans extremism. It’s a robust debate.
A Dish subscriber writes:
I just want to say how much I enjoy the podcasts and encourage you all to keep them going. The guests are great, and Andrew, you are a terrific conversationalist. But the best thing about them is the wonderful educational opportunity they provide in my family’s car, of all places.
My older son is 16 and a fabulous video game player, among many other attributes. He regularly competes and wins local tournaments for cash prizes. Unfortunately, the venue where he plays is a long drive from our house. On the way there, we usually listen to a ballgame or some other sports stuff and talk about it. But when I go to pick him up, late at night, there isn’t anything good on the radio. So I started putting on the Dishcast. I’m usually about halfway through an episode when I get to the video-game venue. My son gets in the car, tired and stinking of teenage sweat, and we talk a minute or two about his tournament. Then, of course, he turns to his phone. So I turn the podcast back on.
Almost always, though, he eventually puts his phone aside as he listens to the podcast. He engages and asks questions, or just starts spouting his opinion about whatever it is being discussed. It’s really a wonderful (and unexpected) thing to behold as a parent: the transformation of a child into a free-thinking adult, if only for a few minutes at a time. Providing access to your brilliant guests is a great thing by itself, but doing so in a fashion where an adolescent can partake — unfiltered by the biases of teachers and schools — is really a blessing to us.
Well that just made my day. Browse the entire Dishcast archive for an episode you — or your teenager — might enjoy.
Dissents Of The Week: What A Drag
But first, in the spirit of July Fourth, trans stripper Dina Martina counts the ways she loves this country. I hope this doesn’t upset Chris Rufo too much:
A reader isn’t convinced by my latest column, “Drag Queen Conservatism”:
As a gay man in my late 50s, I understand what you mean about how the controversy of Drag Queen Story Hour paints the center-right as morally panicked puritans. But to me, DQSH seems more about showing the world that we “queer” people have a right to be seen by anyone/everyone at any/all times. DQSH — like the trans-ing of children — is just another way for the Queer Activist wing of our movement to indoctrinate children. I cannot believe that I am now on the side of the puritans, but the “grooming” seems evident to me. No, not “grooming” in the sense of sexual predation, but in the sense of social engineering from an early age.
I support DeSantis and Florida’s bill to promote age-appropriate discussion of sex and sexuality in schools. I support bans on sex reassignment surgery and chemical castration/puberty blockers for minors. As a once left-wing “Act Up” member, I have come to see that childhood is a time of creativity and innocence. Let’s let children at least go through puberty before we introduce them to gender-queer concepts and sexual kinks.
Read my response here, along with two other dissents. Also, a correction:
You wrote, “What was new was Clarence Thomas’ solo dissent.” Um, he didn’t dissent; he concurred. There is a world of difference, and I suspect you just slipped up there on a deadline.
I did. Always grateful for your corrections and dissents — please keep them coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com. More of them on abortion are over on the pod page.
In The ‘Stacks
This is a feature in the paid version of the Dish spotlighting about a dozen of our favorite pieces from other Substackers every week. This week’s selection includes a big comprehensive reax to Roe’s demise, a piece on bipartisan gun reform, and one on summer air travel. Below is one example, followed by a few new substacks:
Rob Henderson unpacks the question, “Why are the least productive workers in an organization typically paid more than what they produce, while the most productive workers are paid less?”
Welcome, Ilya Shapiro! The apostate of Georgetown Law is also joined by the satirist Gary Shteyngart.
You can also browse all the Substacks we follow and read on a regular basis here — a combination of our favorite writers and new ones we’re checking out. It’s a blogroll of sorts. If you have any recommendations for “In the ‘Stacks,” especially ones from emerging writers, please let us know: dish@andrewsullivan.com.
The View From Your Window Contest
Where do you think it’s located? Email your guess to contest@andrewsullivan.com. Please put the location — city and/or state first, then country — in the subject line. Proximity counts if no one gets the exact spot. Bonus points for fun facts and stories. The winner gets the choice of a VFYW book or two annual Dish subscriptions. If you are not a subscriber, please indicate that status in your entry and we will give you a free month subscription if we select your entry for the contest results (example here if you’re new to the contest). Happy sleuthing!
The results for last week’s window are coming in a separate email to paid subscribers later today.
Happy Independence Day. See you next Friday.