Critical Patriotism Can Save Our Democracy. Are We Too Late?
Christian Perry is a community organizer, leadership strategist, and political operative from the Southside of Chicago who currently serves as Political Director to Mayor Brandon Johnson.
To love America is not to recite her myths and encourage delusion-it’s suturing her open wounds with thread spun from uncomfortable truths.
It stands to reason that the majority of people are unaware that September 17 is “Constitution & Citizenship Day” in the United States. In 1952, Congress passed a joint resolution establishing a day to commemorate the signing of the U.S. Constitution and celebrate American citizenship. The observance is meant to encourage Americans to learn more about their civic responsibilities and opportunities. In 2004, Congress passed a law requiring all publicly funded education institutions to hold programs to increase public knowledge of our founding document.
Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was suspended indefinitely after making remarks in his opening monologue that were critical of Vice President JD Vance’s attempts to deify Charlie Kirk. Mr. Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was the chief propagandist of the MAGA movement and was murdered at one of his signature events at Utah Valley University. Mr. Kimmel, despite denouncing political violence and the murder of Mr. Kirk and sending condolences to his family last week, joins a growing list of voices that have been swiftly silenced after critiquing the Trump administration and calling out the abhorrent, hate-filled rhetoric that has proliferated our political discourse since Trump launched his first presidential campaign in 2015.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The preamble to the Constitution is one of the most unapologetically progressive statements passed into law in the history of our country. Legend says that Benjamin Franklin, upon exiting Independence Hall at the conclusion of the constitutional convention, was asked by Elizabeth Willing Powel, the wife of Philadelphia Mayor Samuel Powel, “Mr. Franklin, what do we have? What form of government have you given us?” Franklin replied, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”
If we can keep it.
The United States is a democratic republic founded on constitutional law—one of humanity’s finest inventions to date. However, from her inception, a paradox of liberty has plagued America and our history, from the genocide of Native Americans, the enslavement of Black people, the Civil War, Japanese Internment camps, the Women’s Suffrage Movement, and the Civil Rights Movement. The pursuit of a more perfect union is the purest definition of a group project. The moral arc of the universe doesn’t bend organically toward justice; it requires work, and it must be moved. In this moment, we’re past due on some group homework assignments.
The late great Coretta Scott King said, “Struggle is a never-ending process, freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.” As a veteran, I remember fondly the moment I became a United States Sailor. The last test in boot camp is called “Battle Stations.” It is a twelve-hour ship crisis simulation that you must complete successfully to graduate. At the end of this high-stress crucible event, a sleep-deprived eighteen-year-old from the Southside of Chicago wept as I removed my recruit ball cap and was handed my Sailor ball cap, “God Bless The USA” blasting in the background. A face I cannot remember shook my hand and said, “Welcome to my Navy shipmate.”
While this story is quite corny, you should understand the context. It’s early 2009, and I had just voted in my first election for a Southsider who got his start organizing five minutes from where I grew up. I was in Grant Park the night the most beautiful first family greeted the country, making history. My Commander-In-Chief was Black and from Chicago? My thoughts were that our ancestors built this country, died for my rights, and we are here, still fighting, still making progress. America is my country.
The Role of the Critical Patriot
“I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” James Baldwin is not the Father of Critical Patriotism; that title belongs to Frederick Douglass. However, Baldwin’s clarity of conscience allowed him to gift us with language to equip us for the struggle ahead. To be a critical patriot is to acknowledge the duties and the tension inherent in expressing your love for this country. It is to be hopeful and critical, to be incessantly in pursuit of justice and belonging, and to be devoted to the progressive realization of the worthy ideal, that is the American experiment. Can a multicultural society, where freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to protest one’s government, exist in 2025?
Sinclair Broadcast Group (the owner of local ABC affiliate TV stations), through its expulsion of Jimmy Kimmel, represents a direct attack on our democracy. Their vice president, Jason Smith, made a statement that is wholly antithetical to the Constitution that I swore an oath to protect. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
“Mr. Kimmel’s remarks were inappropriate and deeply insensitive at a critical point for our country… We believe broadcasters have a responsibility to educate and elevate respectful, constructive dialogue in our communities. We appreciate FCC Chairman Carr’s remarks today, and this incident highlights the critical need for the FCC to take immediate regulatory action to address control held over local broadcasters by the big national networks.”
Brendan Carr, the Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, helped write Project 2025. His contribution was the chapter on telecommunications, in which he outlined his priorities for the FCC under a new conservative administration.
America’s Crossroads
The year Trump was first elected, I was a month away from graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Trinity Christian College. The 9-11 GI Bill paid for my education. I was raised in the Black Church and had become a well-respected leader on a predominantly white, evangelical-leaning American college campus. It was around this time that I knew my life’s work would be dedicated to helping make sense of the most volatile intersection in American life: Race, Faith, and Politics.
Charlie Kirk should be alive today. Charlie Kirk’s wife should not be a widow. Charlie Kirk’s kids shouldn’t have to grow up without a Father. It is not hard for my heart to break for his family and their loss. The conversation that deserves vigorous debate is who Charlie Kirk was while he lived and what he stood for. The White Christian Nationalism Mr. Kirk sold via Turning Point USA is not the gospel of Jesus Christ I was raised with at the Apostolic Pentecostal Church of Morgan Park. My parents often say they named me Christian intentionally, and I was taught the principles outlined in Matthew 25:35-40. To feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the stranger, and tend to the ill. The perversion of Charlie Kirk’s rhetoric that demeaned Black women, trivialized genocide in Gaza, and preached the white replacement theory is not Christianity. This unholy entanglement of MAGA, White Christian Nationalism, and Federal power is eroding our democratic institutions and destroying the very Constitution that protects citizens’ rights to establish justice.
Douglass, a devout follower of Christ, affirmed the genius of American institutions and referred to the Constitution as a “glorious liberty document” if correctly interpreted. He, too, had a critique on the Christianity of this land that is wildly relevant today:
“Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference — so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels.”
The gift of being an American citizen, at least for now, is that you have the right to resist. We have a responsibility to one another to reject apathy and pursue the common good, not only for ourselves but also for our posterity. There are those who seek to incite and divide us as a means to obtain power to control, but if we so decide to build it and wield it, those in opposition to the common good are no rival to the power of the people. The Critical Patriot must heed the call of Jesse Jackson Sr. and Keep Hope Alive and internalize the truth of St. Augustine.
“Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”