are any little things that remind him of his boundless love of country – as beer does Bill McKibben – he tells me, in a distinctly mellow tone, that he prefers “to think about big things instead.”
mayor Peter Clavelle says it’s not his state’s premium, but its willingness to admit refugees from war-torn nations, that sets his patriotic heart aflutter. “The early patriots of the United States of America were refugees or immigrants,” Clavelle says. “I’m proud, and feel patriotic, when I consider how my city and the state of Vermont have welcomed uprooted people, helping the world’s most vulnerable to rebuild their lives.” Elsewhere in Burlington – as good a place as any to set out in search of aging hippies who love their country – Howard Dean reveals his favorite thing about America: How much it’s changed, he says, since he was my age. He tacks the #MeToo movement onto his list of what makes him proud to be an American, along with the fact that the majority of students at elite universities these days are women, whereas his Yale was almost entirely white and exclusively male. The various accomplishments of nonwhite people – “There are a whole lot of African American and Hispanic millionaires because of sports, and other things,” he observes – fill him with patriotic pride. Back when the former governor and one-time presidential contender was the progressive candidate from Vermont – before Bernie, in other words – it was Dean’s exuberance (recall the “Dean Scream”) that torpedoed his campaign. He served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee for years afterward, and now sits on the board of one of the world’s fastest-growing cannabis companies. When I ask him whether there
A Mountain Man, a Baseball Fan Evan McMullin , the CIA veteran turned anti-Trump politico who ran as an independent challenger in
2016, waxed wanly about American values. “We’re a country centered on values,” he said in a recent phone interview. “We’re not perfect at living up to them all the time, but we aspire to certain values that define us when we live up to them and we’re unique as a country for that reason.” Particularly in contrast to Syria and Russia, where his CIA service took him, we are richly free. “In many other countries the opposition doesn’t get to have a voice, but in this country we can compete in that way. Ideas can compete, leaders can compete,” he says, conjuring memories of his own campaign. “That’s still the case,” he assures me, and himself. “We’re living in a time when there’s a rise in authoritarianism in the U.S., but we could be having this conversation in another country where even to have this conversation would be a tremendous risk to both of us.” Every time we speak out against authoritarianism, we honor our values, he instructs. Even when we disagree, say, about the extent to which democracy has dissolved, “There are things that unite us, these values
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July 2019
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