Patriot Games: The Democrats Shine

 Maybe I just did not notice, but the fact I did not notice says something--I did not see any of the candidates at the Democratic debate wearing lapel American flag pins last night.*

I am so happy about that. 

Worse than no patriotism is phony, dime store patriotism

However you want to think about patriotism, for me, patriotism is phony if it does not involve personal cost, and risk. 

Around April 15th every year, my father would fill out his income tax forms and write his check to the government with a smile. "I'm a closet patriot," he would tell me with a sly smile, in a conspiratorial tone.  "I pay my taxes."  And then he'd add. "And I don't cheat."

For him patriotism meant real sacrifice. Dollars out of his bank account. 

I think it was Ronald Reagan who started the American flag on the lapel thing. Reagan was all about image, all about easy, showy patriotism

Joe Sixpack, who buys a $2 bumper sticker for his F-150 and weeps at the singing of the national anthem before the ball game, thinks he's a patriot.  Nathan Hale he is not.

For my money the real patriot is my neighbor, who lives up the street, and spends her Saturday mornings walking through neighborhoods she does not know, knocking on doors, trying to talk up her candidates, trying to persuade her neighbors. She is no more than 64 inches tall, a wisp of a woman, but she walks all morning and then goes home to man the phone banks in the afternoon.

One day I had a route which overlapped hers and I found myself in a Dogpatch part of Hampton, an unpaved road, an eviscerated deer hanging from a tree branch its antlers touching the ground, its trunk flayed open, flies working on it. In the driveway, a pickup truck with the inevitable gun rack and the , "These Colors Don't Run" bumper sticker. 
I looked this scene over and decided to pass. Wasn't worth trying to convince this guy to vote for Obama.  Not a likely vote for Obama. 

But my co-worker was undeterred, she arrived later, all alone, marched up to the door, rang the bell,  and when the deer slayer ambled over, no doubt scratching his hairy belly, as he stepped out on the porch, she handed the $2 patriot her pamphlets, and doubtless,  batted her baby blues at him and she  said, "Hope to see you at the polls."

"Are you out of your mind?" I asked her, later. "That guy had a shotgun on that pick up truck. You're lucky he didn't hang you up right next to the deer."

"Hey," she said. "This is New Hampshire. Besides, no guts, no glory."

The lady had both. She is my idea of a real patriot.

* [Actually, I just looked at the photos: Martin O'Malley had one, but small, discrete. Bernie Sanders had a lapel pin but I cannot tell if it is a flag or his US Senate pin. He could be forgiven, having described himself as a socialist, you've got to cut him some slack.]