Watching the Democrats last week, I sometimes heard the crowd chanting O-ba-ma, O-ba-ma, but overwhelmingly more often it was Yes-we-can, Yes-we-can. With the Republicans this week, it was sometimes Drill-baby-drill, Drill-baby-drill, or a few others, but overwhelmingly U-S-A, U-S-A. A few conservative blogs have commented on this, expressing their preference for it, insinuating that it says something about the parties.
I don’t object to that chant in the Olympics, or in other international competitions, but in intranational ones, at a political party’s convention — whichever political party’s — the implication that this one and not the other is the party of America, the party of patriotism, is not merely tasteless but deeply offensive to me.
And when a war protester disrupts the event, holding up peace signs and yelling, “End the war,” I don’t object to her being removed. But when her shouts for peace are drowned out by a mob chanting U-S-A, U-S-A, I am not merely offended, I am horrified.
Amen.