In Defense of Nationalism: How It Binds Us Together

Once upon a time, our nation was proud to be America. We held the values of nationalism to be precious. I’m talking about civic nationalism: loyalty to our shared creed, our Constitution, our common tongue English, our history, our heroes, our legends, and our territory. We were not interested in the blood-and-soil Fatherland nonsense the Nazis and others espoused; we were interested in the ideals that bound us all together. We were proud to be a common people forged out of many.

And yes, there were subgroups, and yes, there were problems. We worked together to perfect our nation, to make it a little bit better every day, and to adhere to that sacred phrase “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” We did not allow special interests veto power over the whole project. We believed that Americans were Americans. And Britons were British. And yes, Persians were Persians, as they are loudly proclaiming today.

But after World War II, we were immersed in an experiment, a living attempt to destroy nationalism. Into that vacuum stepped identity politics, which has made everything worse. And how we arrived here is unsurprising.

Historic Roots: From Imperial Mess to Pathologized Pride

For most of human history, nations were pretty straightforward. One people, one language, and one set of customs ran the show. Big cosmopolitan trade cities had outsiders — merchants, slaves, whatever — but they were small in population, kept their heads down, and didn’t call the shots. Power stayed with the core group. Nations were simple, homogeneous, and stable. Even the early empires were mostly divided into ethnic territories with governors who understood the differences between peoples, though they might hold the people they governed in contempt. These territories tended to behave because revolution ended in enslavement and the diaspora of key troublemakers.

Modern empire, however, complicated everything. Europeans colonized new territories, often bringing in their own people to permanently settle in areas with indigenous populations. To greater or lesser degrees, the indigenous people were often treated poorly, and other new groups moved in, sometimes to settle in established colonies and sometimes to develop colonies of their own. In North America, waves of colonization brought in French, English, Scots-Irish, Dutch, and Spanish settlers, a polyglot collection that eventually became the United States of America. In other regions, chunks of land were swapped between great powers like trading cards, and later during the age of revolution and the fall of the great colonial powers, they were divided up and glued together in often incompatible "nations." These places, like Iraq, Pakistan, and parts of Africa, often became powder kegs, home to some of the worst atrocities in history. This was a blow to so-called nationalism; it had been become something new, and the forces that once held nations together now drove them apart. 

And then there was Germany, once dozens of nations that had been glued together by a common culture and tongue by Prussian will and German willingness. Rooted in the humiliation of Napoleon's defeat of most of the German states, German nationalism took a toxic turn after World War I, taking national pride and twisting it into racial madness. The Allies won, occupied the place, and said never again. They built Erinnerungskultur — a whole state-run guilt machine of memorials, rewritten textbooks, and ritual shame. This became the model for leftists and educators throughout the west. As empires fell, cobbled-together nations fell apart, and Germany, Italy, and Japan showed the toxicity wrongly held national pride could take on, national pride became something you apologized for in the West.

America never got the full dose that Europe received. We fought our own civil war to end slavery. We confronted Indian removal in pieces. The reckonings happened, but they stayed contested and partial. No foreign army ever forced perpetual national self-loathing on us, as happened in Germany and Japan and, to a lesser extent, to Italy. Instead, we had a half-empty tank of pride — exactly the opening identity politics needed to rush in and make a mess. We did well during the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. But by the 1960s, the influx of postmodernist thinking and Marxist ideology started to take its toll on our national identity.

The Vacuum and Its Fillers

Once you shame people out of loving their own country, they don’t stop wanting to belong. They just seek out smaller tribes, tribes that some gatekeeper or elite says are okay. That’s where identity politics came in, promising global solidarity: all women together, all Blacks together, all LGBT together, all Hispanics together.

In theory, it sounds nice, and certainly a lot of people have adhered to it. More have made a lot of money from it. In reality, the solidarity of identity politics is an illusion. These groups are in no way global brotherhoods or sisterhoods. Instead, they are split nation by nation because laws, culture, and real-life threats stop dead at the border. Afghan women are fighting for the right not to be beaten for showing their face. American women are arguing about boardroom quotas, or at least elite ones are; poorer women just want daycare. Ghanaian women have their own battles. There is no rational way to glue those together without one side rolling over the others.

Worse, the whole “global” thing is mostly American or West-centric projection wearing a halo. American feminists show up in Africa pushing legal, free, or cheap abortion in the apparent belief that it’s the answer to everything. Local women like Obianuju Ekeocha, who I’ve followed for years and who tells it straight, push right back hard. They call it reproductive imperialism. Their priorities are malaria nets, clean water, stopping child marriage, and keeping their kids fed, not imported Western talking points. Same story plays out with LGBT frameworks in conservative African countries. The “global sisterhood” turns into cultural arrogance quickly.

Identity Competition Within National Borders Is Toxic: Contempt of Proximity

When identity groups fight, the winners and losers live next door. Same street, same school, same office, sometimes the same house. That proximity turns rivalry into daily poison faster than anything else possibly could. Families are ripped apart, marriages that are already unstable fail. 

Robert Putnam's landmark 2007 study "E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century" laid it bare: ethnic diversity in neighborhoods doesn't just strain relations between groups; it erodes trust even within the same group. In more diverse communities, people of every background pull back: fewer friendships, less volunteering, lower charitable giving, and a general sense that the world outside your door is less reliable. Whites trust other whites less; blacks trust other blacks less. Putnam called it the "hunkering down" effect, a kind of social withdrawal triggered by the sheer overload of difference. The data came from nearly 30,000 respondents across hundreds of U.S. communities, and the pattern held even after controlling for income, crime, and other factors. It's not hatred so much as retreat. People expect less from their neighbors, so they give less in return.

It gets worse up close. When the differences are no longer across the street but across the kitchen table or the shared office desk, the withdrawal turns personal and daily. In marriages where one spouse, most often the wife, prioritizes feminist ideology above marital unity, every disagreement gets reframed as evidence of systemic patriarchy rather than a solvable human friction. Requests become accusations, frustrations become proof of entitlement, and the home ceases to be a refuge. Trust collapses faster in that zero-distance space because there is no buffer, no retreat to a neutral hallway. The same dynamic plays out in workplaces riven by ideological divides: guarded conversations, siloed teams, quiet resentment. Putnam showed diversity makes people hunker down at the neighborhood level; bring the same ideological cleavage inside the front door or the conference room, and the contempt of proximity becomes intimate, corrosive, and almost impossible to ignore.

Nations used to fight across borders. You could hate the other side, beat them, then sign a treaty and trade with them. We flattened Germany and Japan, then rebuilt them. But now the battlefield is your own neighborhood. Robert Putnam’s research proved what common sense already knew: more diversity, less trust. People hunker down, make fewer friends, volunteer less. The contempt of familiarity isn’t a glitch — it’s the main program.

And it's where we are today, right now, as a nation.

Nationalism as the Only Stable Political Foundation

Nations aren’t perfect, but nationalism, the shared sense of belonging to a nation with its own rules, culture, and stories, is the only proven force capable of binding large, diverse populations together at scale in a way that fosters cooperation, trust, and mutual obligation.

History shows that nationalism acts as powerful social glue, turning strangers into a cohesive "imagined community" where people feel loyalty to one another despite never meeting. This shared identity has enabled remarkable achievements: the American Revolution forged a new nation out of disparate colonies, channeling collective energy into self-government and liberty; the French Revolution mobilized millions under ideals of fraternity and equality, spreading citizenship rights; 19th-century unifications in Italy and Germany created stable states from fragmented principalities, paving the way for industrialization and modern democracy in parts of Europe. Post-colonial movements in Asia and Africa, like Indonesia's Pancasila principles, used inclusive nationalism to unify ethnically and religiously diverse peoples into functioning states.

What makes nationalism uniquely effective is its ability to supersede narrower identities — tribal, religious, ethnic, or class-based — and answer democracy's core question: "Who are the people?" By defining the nation as an extended family deserving mutual support, it underpins institutions that otherwise falter. It has provided the ideological foundation for welfare states (solidarity across the population justifies taxes and safety nets), public education (shared language and history build common purpose), progressive taxation, universal conscription, and even economic development (as seen in post-war South Korea and Taiwan, where nationalist mobilization drove rapid growth). Inclusive nationalism promotes equality before the law, expands political participation, and inspires pride in collective accomplishments, from infrastructure to cultural revivals, without requiring constant coercion. Most importantly, it provides a tangible sense of pride in what we the people have accomplished together that makes the national anthem hit you right in the stomach.

No other ideology or structure has matched this track record for large-scale solidarity. Global or supranational alternatives fragment into resentment because they lack that visceral bond and because the disparate members eventually all pursue their own goals; identity groups splinter over competing claims. Nationalism, when rooted in shared values, history, and territory rather than exclusion, remains the most reliable way to unite millions in pursuit of common goals, good governance, and enduring freedom. It's not flawless, but it's the machine that actually works.

Ideological Asymmetry: Left Deconstruction vs. Right Reclamation

The left thrives in our current anationalist fragmented landscape because it aligns seamlessly with their core worldview: systemic oppression everywhere, identity as the primary lens, and the nation-state itself as the chief oppressor. Projects like Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States (1980) exemplify this approach, framing American history as a relentless saga of exploitation by elites against workers, indigenous peoples, slaves, women, and immigrants. Zinn’s narrative, influential in education and popular culture, emphasizes bottom-up resistance while portraying foundational events (like Columbus’s arrival or the Constitution) as tools of domination rather than shared triumphs. The 1619 Project (launched by The New York Times in 2019) takes this further, arguing that 1619, the arrival of the first "enslaved" Africans in Virginia, marks America’s true founding, with slavery’s legacy shaping every institution, from capitalism to traffic patterns. These efforts rewrite national stories to center perpetual guilt and division, encouraging subgroups to compete over grievances rather than unite under a common inheritance.

The right operates in the opposite direction. Nationalism serves as a call to reclaim tradition, core principles, and legitimate pride in what generations actually achieved. Conservatives acknowledge historical flaws — slavery, Native displacement, segregation — but refuse to let them obliterate our incredible record of innovation, liberty, self-government, and moral progress. The American Founding, for instance, produced documents and institutions that expanded freedom worldwide; post-Civil War amendments corrected injustices while preserving the republic; waves of immigrants built prosperity within a framework of shared values. Reclaiming nationalism means celebrating the fundamentals of limited government, individual rights, civic duty, and cultural continuity without denial or apology tours. It fosters gratitude for inherited freedoms, from constitutional protections to economic opportunity, and views the nation as a living inheritance worth defending and transmitting.

This asymmetry explains much of today’s cultural clash: the left deconstructs to expose and dismantle perceived hierarchies, often leaving resentment in its wake; the right reclaims to rebuild cohesion around what endures. Neither side is blind to sins, but only one treats them as the defining essence. Nationalism, properly understood, isn’t blind chauvinism; it’s a healthy attachment and camaraderie that binds diverse people in mutual loyalty and purpose, turning history’s ledger into motivation rather than permanent indictment.

Common Objections & Rebuttals

There are a few very common objections to the nationalist point of view, and they are easily answered. 

• “Nationalism caused the world wars and the Holocaust!” No. The Nazi perversion did. Civic nationalism rebuilt West Germany, Japan, and South Korea. The real body counts came from transnational ideologies too.
• “Diversity is our strength!” Putnam says the short- and medium-term costs are real and painful. The places that make diversity work, like Canada and Australia, did it by building a strong national identity on top. Exactly what we’re talking about.
• “Identity politics gave us real rights!” Early civil rights won by appealing to American ideals. The modern subgroup-first version just delivered record polarization and collapsing trust. And fact-check: it was Republican conservative strength that passed the Civil Rights Act, mostly out of a sense of fairness and Christian ideology. Democrats were split, with a large group adamantly opposed. Identity politics in no way gave us our current system of civil rights.

We ran the shame experiment. We ran the global-identity experiment. Both left us more divided, less proud, and weaker than we were before.

It’s time to stop flinching. Reclaim civic nationalism — the version that lets subgroups have their say but keeps the national project in the driver’s seat. Americans can be Americans again. Britons can be British again. Persians can be Persians again.

Because nations are what actually work. The rest is just noise.