On Nationalism and Nations

Clairton Coke Works (owned by U.S. Steel), in Clairton, Pa. (Photo by Roy Luck)

Many political terms are slippery, and many of them are fighting words. Take “conservative” and “liberal.” What does Smith or Jones mean by them? You had better find out before proceeding in conversation with Smith or Jones, because without a shared vocabulary, conversation is fruitless.

So it is with “nationalist.” President Trump, speaking to a rally in 2018, said, “You know what I am? I’m a nationalist, okay? I’m a nationalist. Nationalist! Use that word! Use that word!”

Trump has been known to pit “nationalist” against “globalist.” Supporters of international trade, he describes as “globalist.” Supporters of protectionism, on the other hand, are “nationalist.”

Is it true? I don’t think so. A nation can make decisions on trade, one way or the other. A nation can decide to have a free economy or a closed one. A nation can make many decisions.

(Who is doing the deciding is another matter. Does the government have the consent of the governed? Or is it a dictatorship? Is it “non-consensual,” as Robert Conquest would say?)

In the 1820s, many were attracted to the Greek cause: the cause of Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire. “Philhellenes,” they are sometimes called. Ought Greece to be a nation? Was the cause of its independence, its nationhood, nationalist?

Yes, I think so.

And how about Israel? Is there a nationalist element to Zionism? Certainly. Enough of diaspora, enough of being scattered, enough of reliance on “host countries.” A nation for the Jews. The establishment—no, the re-establishment, the recovery—of Israel.

In a recent column, I stressed that foreign students were an important part of my education. My foreign classmates, in college and graduate school (high school, even): They taught me a lot.

I met a girl from Split. She explained to me that, really, she was not a Yugoslavian but a Croatian. This was new to me. You may say that I should have known. But my teenage self did not.

The idea of nationalism comes up outside of political contexts. Recently, I wrote about Geirr Tveitt, a Norwegian composer. I wrote about him in conjunction with Edvard Grieg.

Tveitt was born in 1908, a year after Grieg died. Like Grieg, he had a general European musical education. Like Grieg, he came to embrace Norwegianness. He was a nationalistic composer.

Earlier this week, the New York Times published an article headed “ ‘Golden Share’ in U.S. Steel Gives Trump Extraordinary Control.” Here is the subheading: “Administration officials secured a deal that will give the president unusual influence over a private company, and could serve as a model for other deals.”

We learn from the article,

New details of the agreement show that the structure would give President Trump and his successors a permanent stake in U.S. Steel, significant sway over its board and veto power over a wide array of company actions, an arrangement that could change the nature of foreign investment in the United States.

We further learn that

U.S. Steel’s charter will list nearly a dozen activities the company cannot undertake without the approval of the American president or someone he designates in his stead.

On X, Scott Lincicome of the Cato Institute wrote, “U.S. Steel has effectively been nationalized (by the political party supposedly fighting American socialism).”

This prompted a question in my mind: Do nationalism and nationalization go hand in hand? I don’t think so—not in theory. A nation can do all sorts of things in its interest. A nation may opt for robust free enterprise and against nationalization. Think of the U.K. under Thatcher, which denationalized (to its benefit).

In practice, however, nationalism and nationalization often go hand in hand. My impression is, the nationalist is likelier to be a nationalizer than a denationalizer. But it need not be so.

(Yesterday, Scott Lincicome published an article at The Dispatch on U.S. Steel and nationalization, here.)

Not long ago, I wrote an essay on patriotism and quoted it in a column:

If you want an example of patriotism, look to the Ukrainians, I say. They have set an example of patriotism—and courage, and self-sacrifice—for all time. I think of a phrase used by Kyle Parker, of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, in a podcast with me: “this valorous defense of hearth and home.”

They have also set an example of nationalism: insisting on their independence, their right to exist, fighting and dying to avoid conquest by a merciless empire.

I wish to share a letter from Laszlo Korossy, a longtime reader and correspondent. (I share it with his permission, of course.) As you can tell from his name, he is of Hungarian origin.

Dear Jay,

I apologize for a long e-mail [no apology necessary], but I am thankful for what you said about the Ukrainians and nationalism.

I know that many terms are subject to flux, especially in today’s climate, but the taint on “nationalism” is especially painful to me.

Growing up as the child of expats, I was steeped in Hungary’s 19th-century romantic nationalism, and the love of homeland was more than right and proper—it was as basic as breathing. I wrote both my high-school and undergraduate theses on nationalism, defending it on theological and philosophical grounds.

The argument I made, quite simply, was that the “nation” is neither a new concept nor a controversial one; that one is naturally and rightly inclined to the love of one’s people; that, by extension, all true nationalists not only love their own country but also support others in loving theirs; that empire and conquest are the diametric opposite of the existence and strength of nation-states.

I naively believed that “nationalism” was an objective term and thus would be less prone to definitional drift than others, but both those I admire and those I despise seem to have interpreted it as a convenient shorthand for Trumpism and Orbánism. Perhaps when even “conservative” has lost so much meaning, this should be the least of my troubles, but in my heart I still consider myself a nationalist, and many of my views stem from that identification. It hurts.

I had hoped that Ukraine’s self-defense would reinspire at least some elements of the wayward Right. They opposed the Left for its “globalism” and “anti-Americanism,” and here was a nation standing up for the very idea of Nation, suffering and dying to protect an identity from a rapacious Russia.

In truth, my hope was not entirely without basis: Poland’s Trump-lite party was one of Ukraine’s staunchest defenders, and much of the Republican Party in the U.S. initially came out in force against Putin as well. It is exceedingly bitter to me, then, that so many were quick to turn against the greatest nationalist effort in the new century, lining up with such leaders as Trump and Orbán.

Mr. Korossy adds a coda, painful: Even some Hungarian Americans of his acquaintance, “who initially displayed the Ukrainian blue and yellow and cheered Putin’s early defeats,” turned against the Ukrainians—going with the Trump/Orbán flow, essentially.

Today, I have given you a mish-mash of a column (as so often). But I suppose it has one outstanding point: “Nationalism,” like other words, is subject to interpretation (and abuse). It has disparate understandings. Find out what the other guy means.