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THE MONKS – President Trump spent 21 months in his office calling his critics non-patriotic.
N.F.L. Players who kneel during the national anthem may "not be in the country," he said. Journalists who write unflattering stories are "enemies of the people". Democratic lawmakers who did not applaud for his speech on the state of the Union were "traitors".
And yet, for Bridget Carberry Montgomery, an Iowa Democrat, this is a time when she never felt more patriotic.
Montgomery, 43, a mother of four, never got into politics until this fall, when she was leading a group that sat in a sports bar on Sunday night. with children, to write postcards calling Iowans to turn out to vote.
"I love my country and I want it to be the best version of itself," she said. She added, "I feel emboldened in my patriotism."
As the nation goes to the polls in a referendum on the conduct, policies and character of the president, its supporters and opponents express very different views on issues such as immigration, firearms and the courts.
But more and more, they differ on something more fundamental: what it means to be patriotic and how to express it politically.
Here in the center of the country, where three of Iowa's four internal races are competitive and where Mr. Trump first rewrote the rules of patriotism in Senator John McCain, attacking a war hero and former president of the Commission, it is clear that Republicans and Democrats are separating on the sense of duty, respect and love of the country.
For Republicans and Mr. Trump, to whom singer Lee Greenwood participated for his last rally, which performed his hymn "God Bless the USA", patriotism in politics often means remarkable demonstrations of respect for the traditional expressions of the world. 39; America – the flag, the army, the oath of allegiance.
Denise Bubeck, a Republican at Grimes in Iowa, works for a rights group that promotes "family values" such as heterosexual marriage and opposition to abortion.
For her, getting up to respect the flag is not negotiable. When she sees athletes kneeling As a sign of protest against police brutality during the national anthem, she thinks of a grandfather killed during the battle of Iwo Jima. "People have really shed blood for the freedoms we have," she said. "We must show respect for this country."
But, especially in this election period, many Democrats described their vote as a different form of patriotism, an urgent effort to protect and recover American democracy. This point of view attempts to redefine a subject. Democrats of the past have often yielded politically to Republicans.
Democrats see a president who has tried to use the Justice Ministry against his political enemies to override constitutional protections, including freedom of expression and citizenship, and which has dangerous authoritarian tendencies.
They are furious with the Republican majorities of Congress for not exercising their responsibility to hold Trump accountable.
The Democrats "are mobilizing around a rhetoric of" we must go out and do this to save the country "- that the vote will be a patriotic act, that there are violated standards and corrupt institutions", said Kevin M. Kruse, historian at Princeton University.
Some conservative intellectuals believe that the Democrats' efforts to seize a patriotic cloak are fundamentally flawed. They argue that progressive politics is based on grievances about racism, sexism and other alleged sins of America.
Support for President Trump can be partly explained by a patriotic response to the current criticism of the left against America, said Shelby Steele, research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
"Trump is president today because the left is intoxicated with his penchant, his moral superiority, and even put these people down, and in many cases, quite unfairly" said Steele.
"And so, the explosive support for this guy from nowhere comes from those who felt forgotten and excluded from this new vision of America, from this new liberal innocence. They want to be – they believe – that they are proud Americans and that their patriotism is based on the self-esteem of Americans. "
Beto O'Rourke, Democratic Senate candidate in Texas, answered a question about N.F.L. players kneeling during the national anthem to protest the killing of blacks by the police.
"I can not think of anything more American," Mr. O'Rourke spoke about the protests in a speech that became viral.
The following day, the president told West Virginia supporters: "You are proud of our country, you are proud of our history and, unlike the NL, you always honor and cherish our great American flag."
Democrats and Republicans are divided on the acceptability of dissent as a component of patriotism.
Kristen Anderson, a 34-year-old mother living in Des Moines, sees the events very differently.
She invoked James Baldwin's definition of patriotism: "I love America more than any other country in the world and, precisely for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize it in perpetuity. ".
Anderson, who works for a finance company, has declared her vote for the Democratic challenger of a close race in the third district of Iowa's Congress was a vote to overthrow the majority of the House and put a damper on the President.
"I think anyone who pays particular attention should worry about democracy," she said.
She said that her own family was directly threatened. As a lesbian, she said that the constitutional protection of her marriage was vulnerable to the choices of Trump's Supreme Court. His wife, a Latina immigrant, has a green card. "But with the antagonism of this administration towards immigrants, especially those of Latin American descent, and in a homosexual partnership – I can not trust this administration to respect precedents or laws" said Ms. Anderson.
As in almost everyone in the Trump era, American divisions on patriotism have become more partisan, according to polls.
Gallup, who since 2001 asked people how proud they are of being Americans, We have seen this year that 74% of Republicans are extremely proud, but since the election of Mr. Trump, the share of Democrats extremely proud to be American has dropped to 32%.
A YouGov poll this year revealed that the majority of Democrats said that a person can be a patriot who criticizes US leaders for foreigners, disobeys a law deemed immoral or refuses to serve in a war deemed unfair. Far fewer Republicans agreed that such dissensions were compatible with patriotism.
Brian Myers, Republican owner of a small business in Madrid, Iowa, who did not vote for Mr. Trump (he wrote in Bobby Jindal, former governor of Louisiana), s & rsquo; Is said to be troubled by polls showing a drop in the pride of Democrats in America.
"I see so often now that people describe the American flag as an offensive element," he said. "It's a symbol of racism and bigotry." I find that appalling. "
Tyler Higgs, 32, a school psychologist living in Clive, Iowa, dismissed conservative criticism that he hated America as a progressive. Mr. Higgs founded an Indivisible Local, a basic network located to the left.
"Why are we knocking on doors, why are we going to legislative forums, and are we writing letters to our legislators if we hate our country?", He said. "All these things that they say are of liberal indignation – that is patriotism."
Higgs described the mid-term reviews as "incredibly important," listing the ways in which he thought Trump was a threat to democracy: undermining the electoral process, attacking the independent press, and "fanning white supremacists." in our society".
Many Republicans see this fear as exaggerated, even paranoid. Senator Charles E. Grassley, High Representative for the Republic of Iowa, said that Democrats should relax and that the separation of powers provided by the Constitution remains intact. He remembered his first election to the House of Commons in 1974, soon after Richard Nixon's resignation, when it was a coup about the military state. But the Republic has survived.
"As long as you have the checks and balances of the Constitution, what these Democrats say about Trump's threat has no basis," Grassley said.
Republicans for years have taken over patriotism as a political issue. The advantage goes back at least to the Vietnamese era, while some of the left associates the flag and the army to shameful symbols of American power.
In the 1980s, Republicans mastered the use of the flag as a problem in the wars of culture. They then attacked President Barack Obama for leading what they called an "apology tour" of foreign countries and an inadequate adoption of "American exceptionalism".
This year, however, as US prestige in the world was suffering under Trump, the Democrats seized the opportunity and sought to rewrite the patriotic script. They named a group of veterans in the House Districts held by Republicans. Many are women with resumes in combat or service academies. Candidates include Amy McGrath in Kentucky, Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Elaine Luria in Virginia. Abigail Spanberger, who runs in Virginia, is a former C.I.A. anti-terrorism officer.
Jean Ludwig, 75, a retired financial advisor, knocked on the door of Republican candidates in Carroll, Iowa, including Governor Kim Reynolds and Rep. Steve King.
"I would like to be able to do more," she said.
She said a factual assessment of the Trump presidency would do a great job, but Democrats, who "are more emotionally controlled," she said, did not want to see it. "They do not talk to anyone but simply:" I hate the president, do not they? "
She said that she particularly hated the media telling her what to think rather than, in her opinion, reporting things frankly. When Trump called himself a "nationalist," much of the coverage was critical because of the historical association of this term with white supremacy; Ms. Ludwig called this media bias.
"Nationalism is a very good thing. It just means that we are going to look first at the United States, "she said.
Not far from Mrs. Ludwig's home county, Emily Alberhasky hears something much more sinister in the fact that the president calls himself a nationalist. For her, it's the opposite of patriotism.
"It gives voice and power to the racist belly of this country," said Ms. Alberhasky, 40, mother of five from Ankeny, in Iowa. "When President Trump talks about the caravan or one of the hundreds of thousands of people trying to get asylum or find security in our country, he talks about it as if we had heard from other groups, including Jews, in history. me chills up to the bone. "
"The association with the word nationalism is not one of democracy and acceptance," she said. "He has a very heavy tone of judgment and supremacy."
She said the Trump administration had caused her fear and sleepless nights.
"Am I proud to be an American?" She said. "I do not think I can say I'm right now. I am really disappointed with almost half of this country. I feel embarrassed and ashamed to find that this is our current situation. "
She added, "But I'm really proud of more than half of our country and I feel very patriotic to want this country to come back, if not to come true, in a place of who we really are, which is a mix very varied, very eclectic and beautiful of all kinds of people. "
Ms. Alberhasky had never been involved in politics until this year. She spent the days leading up to Tuesday working 12-hour teams in a campaign office, mobilizing volunteers to get votes for Democrats.
William J. Barber II, pastor of North Carolina and advocate for the liberal causes of what is known as Moral Monday at the State Capitol, said the idea of eternally seeking to improve America was inscribed in some the most patriotic texts in the country.
He quoted "America, the Beautiful" and his words: "America! America! God corrects all your faults. "
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