Ross Douthat discusses two narratives of U.S. origins: one grounded in cosmopolitan liberalism, exemplified by Barack Obama’s speeches, and another grounded in particularist understandings of Americanism, exemplified by Donald Trump’s “America first” rhetoric. Douthat criticizes the liberal-cosmopolitan narrative, which defines the United States as “a propositional nation bound together by ideas rather than any specific cultural traditions,” because it says more about what the nation isn’t than what it is. While recognizing that stories of Anglo-Protestant founders and settlers are exclusionary and anachronistic, Douthat laments the loss of unity that such particularist narratives once provided. He writes: “Maybe no unifying story is really possible. Maybe the gap between a heroic founders-and-settlers narrative and the truth about what befell blacks and Indians and others cannot be adequately bridged.”

What do you think? Is there value in particularist origin stories, in which the nation is bound together by specific (usually Anglo-Protestant) cultural traditions? What, if anything, is lost when such particularist stories are discarded? Are cosmopolitan-liberal stories, in which the nation is bound together by democratic ideals, sufficient to satisfy public longing for shared national identity?

Finally, can particularist and cosmopolitan-liberal elements be combined in a single national origin story today?

In your response, you don’t have to answer all of the questions posed above. Feel free to focus on one or two.

NOTE: Paul D. Miller uses different language to discuss the same divergence in U.S. origin stories. He uses the term creedal patriotism in place of Douthat’s liberal cosmopolitanism. Miller uses the term cultural nationalism in place of Douthat’s particularist Americanism.