“Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.” He was the “mild-mannered reporter” who could enter a phone booth as Clark Kent and emerge as Superman, stoppable only by kryptonite from which he recoiled, much as the modern-day left, to its detriment, recoils from nationalism, even patriotism. So concludes Democratic political commentator Ruy Teixeira. “Democrats must embrace patriotism and liberal nationalism,” he writes, (but) today’s Democrats have … a problem … It’s … hard to strike up the band on patriotism (and nationalism) when you’ve been endorsing the view that America was born in slavery, marinated in racism and remains a white supremacist society.”

The most recent polling finds only 29% of Democrats are “extremely proud” to be an American, compared to 60% of Republicans. “There used to be a bipartisan consensus that America was a unique, special, exceptional nation. That’s gone,” says Democratic pollster Doug Schoen. The American College Dictionary defines “nationalism” as “devotion to the interests of one’s own nation.” What’s so bad about that? Nothing, say Ramesh Ponnuru and Rich Lowry in their Feb. 20, 2017, National Review column, “For Love of Country“: “Nationalism can be a healthy and constructive force … (that) includes loyalty to one’s country … solidarity with one’s countrymen, whose welfare comes before … that of foreigners.” “No one,” they write, “is truly a citizen of the world. The international community doesn’t give out green cards.”

Nationalism is the organizing principle of the modern world, the force that animated the Founders, stiffened the Union resolve at Gettysburg, propelled troops across the beaches at Normandy and ensured that the first flag planted on the moon bore stars and stripes. Nationalism’s detractors default to the fascism-Nazism bogeyman, which suggests minds not supple enough to entertain nuance or degree. It was aroused nationalism that destroyed Axis fascism. Patriotism, by itself, is a passive sentiment, inadequate for such a task. Appeasers were patriots who loved their country, but nationalism — patriotism’s necessary spine — gave them the backbone to fight and win. Nationalism is about winning.

Those who profess patriotism while rejecting nationalism — virtue signaling — miss the point. Patriotism and nationalism are mutually reinforcing, suggests Suzanne Fields in “When Nationalism is a Worthy Twin of Patriotism,” her July 5, 2017, Washington Times column. “Love of country and pride in the stories handed down from generation to generation create an emotional tradition … with images of George Washington crossing the Delaware River, the Gettysburg Address, the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima and the irresistible force of the civil rights movement … such nationalism … offers no apology for love of country … (and is) reinforced … through Fourth of July fireworks, parades, anthems and the flag.”

The Anthem and the Flag — Democrats need more of this, says Ruy Teixeira. They have tried to unite the country around the themes of dismantling “systemic racism,” promoting “equity” and saving the planet through the “green” revolution — and failed. “It’s time,” says Teixeira, “for Democrats to try something that really could unite the country: liberal nationalism.” The roots of Teixeira’s “liberal nationalism” are found in the 1966 Freedom Budget proposed by civil rights leaders A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, which called for job and income guarantees and a living wage. To be sure, such a platform would not win favor with conservative nationalists, but it was born of a belief in the fundamental goodness and greatness of America — a notion that today’s progressive left recoils from like Superman from kryptonite, but which it should embrace anew.

I recall the episode when Superman squeezed a lump of coal into a diamond, doing in a few seconds what geologic time takes eons to accomplish. Our lump of coal is our current disunity. The glittering diamond is the jewel of a nation we can be again. Democrats, you have that possibility — that responsibility — in your hand. Seize it and squeeze it.