“We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation,” said vice-presidential pseudo-candidate Gov. Sarah Palin at a rally in North Carolina last week. The implication here is obvious: If you’re an urbanite, you’re not part of what Palin calls “the real America.”
On Monday, the “Daily Show with Jon Stewart” harshly – but justifiably – lampooned these comments and took a visit to Palin’s own “pocket of real America.” A resident of Wasilla, Alaska, told the pseudo-newscasters that “in a small town, everyone pretty much helps each other. I think the biggest example of that, nation-wide, was 9/11.” When it was pointed out to this resident that 9/11 didn’t in fact rain destruction and death on small-town America but on the Sodom and Gomorrah that is New York City, he tried to argue that somehow it affected “real America” through the economic troubles that followed.
What is most interesting about this whole debate regarding “real America” goes back to some of the original misconceptions about the so-called war on Islamic extremism. Say you buy into the president’s argument that Islamic fundamentalist terrorists attacked the United States because “they hate our freedom” (which, I might note, I don’t think is the whole picture of their reasoning but rather part of the frame). If this is true, it is also safe to say that Palin’s God-fearing “real America” is not whom they’re after.
The targets on urban rather than rural America by terrorists is no mistake. The real threat to an Islamic fundamentalist culture lies not on Wasilla’s Main Street but rather at the corner of West 42nd Street and Broadway. They fear the free-thinking, anti-dogmatic, poisoning influence of a liberal culture that asserts all people, be they any race, any sexual orientation, are created equal and must be free.
They’re after those of us who believe women not only should be allowed to drive and go out unveiled but also should be allowed full control over their own reproductive decisions. They’re after those who don’t see gay people as sinners but in fact want to give them the right to marry like everyone else. They’re opposing our cultural messages – our movies, our music – that advance these liberal arguments. They’re after the people who challenge the totalitarian theocracy of the Ayatollah by asserting the right to dissent and take on the power of the state. If they hate our freedom, they want to stop those who fight back against global jihad not with more war but with world peace.
In short, the America that stands up to the force of a fundamentalist society can’t be found in “real America.” This is the kind of patriotism that doesn’t just wave the flag and talk about a love for America. This is the America that actually lives, dies, and breathes the very ideal upon which America was founded. It is, in a sense, a true patriotism, one that doesn’t just follow America blindly down whatever path we may take, but instead tries to shape that path itself: to not just love America but to be America.
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