I watched the inaugural speech with my students. I’m hoping that Garry Wills will have a close analysis of the text as there were numerous moments that a serious scholar will be able to explain better than I will, i.e., Donald Trump using the verb “join” — “We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and restore its promise for all of our people ” — mirrors the opening lines of Martin Luther King’s I have a dream speech, which leaves me vaguely nauseated.

King’s words, “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation”, are worth reading again, then, particularly as a counterpoint to Mr. Trump.

I’m more interested, though, in this part of the speech:

“When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.”

First of all, this makes more sense if you invert it, i.e., When you open your heart to prejudice, there is no room for patriotism. If (and I’m dubious) his point was that a true patriot cannot be prejudiced, then my version makes more sense, simply because I’m not sure how one opens one’s heart to patriotism. I can open my heart to another. I feel like I grew up listening to Catholic masses where I was asked to open my heart. Madonna sang about opening her heart too. Don’t click on this at work.

Patriot, though, looking at the OED, shows three threads:

One: Someone who loves their country. This is the definition I’m most familiar with and it’s the one that you’ll hear claimed as a way of excluding others. I’m a patriot (so you must not be). Within this definition, though, at the OED, they note that “Good Patriot” only began after 1680, that before that you were either a patriot or not.

Two: There’s a second ironic strand, too. Apparently Patriot took on a derogatory meaning in the early part of the 18th century. Here’s the full definition, which rang true today:

“A person who claims to be disinterestedly or self-sacrificingly devoted to his or her country, but whose actions or intentions are considered to be detrimental or hypocritical.”

Three: A freedom fighter — if you believe you are in an occupied country, then you can claim an identity as a patriot.

I would like to see the trajectory of this term. I’m sure someone has done it already.