notion that America is the “greatest country in the world,” with more equality, modernity,
technology, efficiency, liberty, culture, and democracy than anywhere else on the globe.
The rendering invisible of structural patterns allows some flexibility in the representations of
what being American means. Hence, patriotism and nationalism, with implicitly racialized
ideological underpinnings, need not always be articulated. They are called upon, at such
moments as those after September 11 to impose the presumptions and draw the lines between
who is and who is not a trustworthy, loyal, and “true” American.
After World War II, the United States emerged from a center-left alliance with France,
Britain, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics against fascist forces in Germany, Italy, and
Japan. But the struggle had actually begun in 1870 when the United States and Germany were
locked in fierce rivalry for succession to Britain, who had begun its slide from the heights of Pax
Britannica. Both countries expanded their industrial base between 1870 and 1914 until they each
surpassed Britain in industrial might. Germany tried to transform the world economy into a
world empire, the “Thousand Year Reich.” But while the kind of military conquest at the root of
such empire building had the advantage of vigor and speed, it was also expensive and united the
victims of such a strategy. Since the war did not take place on U.S. territory, the United States
emerged from the war as the hegemonic power in the world system. Internally, the United States
had constructed a welfare state that was a governing alliance dominated by economic elites, but
included the professional-managerial class, intellectuals, and organized labor. The left-led
popular front played an important role in this alliance. The choice facing the nation at this time
was whether they would continue with the center-left alliance that the left-wing of the New Deal
led by Henry Wallace called the “Century of the Common Man,” or embark on the more frankly
1/16/2008
12 of 30
DRAFT