Flag Jacking - Going Up the Country

I’m listening to the 1968 song, Going Up the Country by Canned Heat as I type. That was another time when Americans were leaving their country, some psychologically; some by gestures and expression of dissent; and yes, “flag jacking”. Some were even acting on the line, “We might even leave the USA”.

I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away.
I'm gonna leave this city, got to get away.
All this fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure can't stay.

Throughout my life I have worked with a number of Americans who had left their country during that time, some for decades, some to never return.

Stephen Marche is a Canadian who loves America. I am increasingly aware of the relevance of Marche’s 2022 book, The Next Civil War. In it he writes,

Difference is the core of the American experience. Difference is its genius. There has never been a country—in history, in the world—so comfortable with difference, so full of difference. The great insight of its founders was that they based government not on the drive toward consensus but on the permission for disagreement.

Once partisan drive takes precedence over the national interest, it shreds the tension underlying the system. Unless both sides believe that they're on the same side, they aren't. And once shared purpose disappears, it's gone. A flaw lurked right at the core of the experiment, as flaws so often do in works of ambitious genius.

I hope that America will get through this dark time. I hope that Marche’s worst case scenario does not occur. But it is increasingly difficult to be hopeful about our neighbour between Mexico and Canada.