Are We Patriots or Nationalists? Do You Know the Difference?

Benjamin Ferencz prosecuting the Einsatzgrüppen Trial (above) and the Defendants (below)

Today I watched a couple of films about Benjamin Ferencz, who at the age of 27 successfully prosecuted the largest murder trial in history, the Einsatzgrüppen Trial, and went on to be a leading advocate for peace and the establishment of the International Criminal Court. Out of the 21 mass murders in the dock at Nuremberg who were responsible for the deaths of over one million Jews and others in the Soviet Union during World War II, Ferencz and his team secured the death sentence for 13 and long prison sentences for the remainder.

Ferencz died at the age of 103 in April 2023. He was the last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor. He wrote: “A true patriot will support his country when it is right but will have the courage to speak out when it’s wrong and try to set it right.” He did that his entire life, even criticizing and condemning leaders of the United States for the Vietnam War, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the so called “Global War on Terror” and our inaction for failing to stop the Rwandan genocide.

I am writing a brief reflection of what I believe it means to be a patriot during the Dictatorial Era of Donald Trump and his gang of criminal associates. While not every one of Trump’s rotten retinue have been convicted, others were indicted only to have their convictions pardoned and indictments dropped at Trump’s command. But Trump cannot easily erase his status as a convicted felon.

Even so there are crimes that he and his administration are committing this very moment which are in violation of American and in some cases international law. The remarkable fact is that he is being aided by the leadership and elected members of his party, most of the corporate media’s willing enablers, his ever corrupt oligarch friends, and the tens of millions of Americans who look the other way hoping that their silence will ensure their survival, saying nothing as they watch his crimes against Americans, and the world. Some of these would fit the definition of crimes against humanity.

While all of these people from Trump on down claim to be patriots, they are not and do not even understand the concept of patriotism. They might be nationalists, but they are not patriots in any sense of the word.

Timothy Snyder wrote “A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best… A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only place where his country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal values, standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it well—and wishing that it would do better.”

I don’t know about you, but I cannot be silent before the worst criminal acts of the Trump regime begin. So I will write, I will speak, I will teach, and I will tell the truth. I am going to tell the truth if the whole world conspires against it.

What say you?