America: the sum of her ideals, not her leaders

I own an enormous American flag, which has adorned every room I’ve lived in since my freshman year of high school.
I carry a pocket-sized copy of the Constitution of the United States of America wherever I go.
When in third grade, I asked my mom to read the Declaration of Independence with me and explain the parts I didn’t understand (read: all of it). Though I didn’t understand the text independently from my mother’s translation, there was something about those words that sent shivers up my spine but also warmed my heart. Soon thereafter, I set about memorizing the first few paragraphs (clearly the best part).
That same year, I dressed up as Thomas Jefferson for Halloween. I thought my costume was obvious because I carried a replica of the Declaration of Independence. Alas, my friends didn’t get it. They thought I was dressed as a groom and pressured me to walk around with a classmate who had dressed as a bride.
I am a liberal. I have almost always voted Democrat, and I was ecstatic to see George W. Bush leave office. So why did I have an enormous American flag on my wall during the Bush years, and why did I carry a copy of the very documents President Bush so blatantly ignored?
The answer is simple: I love my country. I don’t love the people who distort it by appointing activist judges or tipping the balance of power by greatly augmenting the powers of the executive. Rather, I love the conceptual foundations upon which my country was built.
Please understand: I’m no idealist. I don’t cling to simplistic, watered-down concepts of freedom, liberty, and justice that are so vague and malleable that they can be twisted to fit any politician’s agenda.
I am very much aware of the prejudices within the Declaration—“man” really doesn’t include “woman” or “black person”—and the many blunders the United States has committed. But I do recognize something that those who evaluate the country only by those in power at the time should bear in mind: the United States of America is the only country in the world to have been founded purely as a experiment in republican government. For 220 years we have lived by the same document and have never suffered a violent transfer of power, even during a wretched civil war.
On Tuesday, we saw yet another peaceful transfer of power. Despite the fact that Barack Obama and George Bush have little in common policy-wise or temperamentally, and despite the fact that Bush left office with an approval rating of 33 percent and Obama entered office with one of 73 percent, Bush did absolutely nothing to impede the transfer of power. He simply boarded his helicopter and set off for Texas. Moreover, despite the fact that 45 years ago Barack Obama wouldn’t have been able to vote with ease, much less become President, Inauguration Day came and went without any apparent attempts on his life.
Think about that for a minute.
The Inauguration Day that you froze through on the National Mall, watched on television, or maybe even boycotted due to your political views, wouldn’t have been possible if the democratic republican experiment of our Founding Fathers hadn’t, to a large extent, worked. The foundation of that experiment, on an official level, always has been and always will be, the Constitution.
Consider the odds stacked against that document’s coming into existence. Consider the sheer likelihood that a small band of colonists would not only defeat the largest empire in the world, but would draft a document flexible enough to remain relevant 220 years later—in a country with a population about 78 times larger and a territory about three times greater—yet specific enough in its articulation of a balance of power and structure of government to have been amended only 27 times.
I understand if your idea of being patriotic is not to buy an enormous American flag or memorize part of the Declaration of Independence, but think of the following: Obama has emphasized our responsibility as citizens to use America’s foundational ideals to inform our service to the country. In preparation for the new administration, read the Constitution and Declaration of Independence again carefully, and keep those documents in mind as you follow the events of the next four years. Hopefully, by doing so you will be able to keep faith in our country—even when Obama messes up (which he’s bound to do)—as it once again aspires to live up to the expectations, and yes, hopes, set out in our foundational documents.