On July 11 about 70 people stood along Greenwood Avenue in Bethel for our community’s second Democracy Human Chain. It was the 71st consecutive weekly rally organized by Bethel Defends Democracy.
What made the Human Chain especially meaningful was the breadth of the community behind it. Across our first two events, people, banners and support have come from organizations throughout the Greater Danbury area and southwestern Connecticut, including Danbury Unites for Immigrants, Ridgefield Resistance, ACT Local SWCT, Fairfield Indivisible, Bethel Blues, REBs and Rock This Democracy. Connecticut Against Gun Violence joined us for the first time on that Saturday’s event.
Each group brings its own priorities, experiences and reasons for showing up. Some participants were focused on immigration. Others were concerned about civil rights, the rule of law or the growing concentration of presidential power. Local artists, retirees, veterans, parents, first-time participants and regular volunteers stood together beneath large banners that made those concerns visible throughout downtown Bethel.
That range of support is meaningful to me. Democracy is not defended by one organization or one political cause. It is defended when people who care about different issues recognize that their rights, their communities and their futures are connected. What unites us is the belief that this is a moment when Americans need to stand up for their country.
Above the banners, signs and gathered neighbors, American flags flew along Greenwood Avenue.
For years, liberals have allowed the political right to treat patriotism as its exclusive property. Conservatives have claimed the flag, the language of freedom and even the authority to decide who counts as a “real American.” Under Donald Trump, that effort has become something more dangerous: an attempt to make loyalty to one man the measure of loyalty to the country.
Americans should reject that premise completely.
Patriotism is not obedience. America was founded on distrust of concentrated power and on the conviction that government must answer to the people. Our system separates power among branches, protects speech and dissent, and places the Constitution above any individual officeholder. The founders failed terribly to apply their own ideals equally, but the framework they created still rests on a basic principle: No president is a king.
Opposing Trump does not make someone anti-American. Opposing authoritarianism, corruption, cruelty and the abuse of government power is not a rejection of the country.
America is more than a flag, a song or a military display. It is a promise that power will be restrained, rights will be protected, laws will apply to everyone and the people will remain sovereign. We have never fully kept that promise. Much of American history is the story of people who were excluded from it forcing the nation to take its own words more seriously.
Abolitionists did that. Suffragists did that. Civil rights leaders did that. Labor organizers, veterans, journalists and ordinary citizens have all demanded that America become more faithful to the principles it claims to represent.
They were often called divisive, radical or un-American. History remembers many of them as patriots.
That is the tradition I believe today’s liberal movement should claim without hesitation. Not nationalism, which asks us to believe our country is inherently superior. Not performative patriotism, which measures love of country by the size of a flag or the volume of a chant. Real patriotism is a form of responsibility.
It requires us to tell the truth when our government is wrong. It requires us to defend the rights of people we may never meet and to care about abuses of power that may never reach our own front door. It requires loyalty to the Constitution over a president, democracy over a party, truth over propaganda and human dignity over political convenience.
I love America, and my liberal values are part of why.
I want America to be the best country in the world, not because we yell it the loudest, but because we do the difficult work required to become freer, fairer, more humane and more democratic. I want my daughters to inherit a country where the rule of law still matters, where leaders are held accountable and where their rights do not depend on which political faction holds power.
That is why I show up each week. It is why I carry the flag at a protest.
The flag is not there as an apology to people who believe dissent is un-American. It is there as a declaration that this country belongs to all of us, including those who criticize its government, oppose its president and demand better from its institutions.
We are not protesting because we hate America. We are protesting because we refuse to give up on it.
The Trump movement does not get to abandon democratic principles and still claim exclusive ownership of patriotism. It does not get to use the language of freedom while demanding obedience, or wave the flag while treating dissenters and vulnerable neighbors as enemies.
Liberals should stop surrendering this ground. We should carry the flag without embarrassment, speak openly about our love of country and insist that patriotism means more than loyalty to power.
The flag is ours, too. So is the responsibility to defend what it is supposed to represent.