Name: National Day of Patriotic Devotion.
Age: Four days old.
Appearance: A piece of paper with writing on it.
What does the writing say? Oh, a bunch of stuff. “A new national pride stirs the American soul and inspires the American heart … we must maintain faith in our sacred values and heritage … There are no greater people than the American citizenry …” Then it’s signed by Donald Trump.
He has just become US president, hasn’t he? That’s right. Well done. And one of his first acts was to declare the day of his inauguration a “National Day of Patriotic Devotion”.
That sounds a bit scary. I mean, people who talk about national destiny and patriotic duty are usually dangerous tyrants, aren’t they? That’s certainly how some have reacted. The novelist Robert Harris drew comparison to the Nazi “day of awakening” to celebrate Hitler’s election in 1933.
Crikey. Erm, help. But don’t panic just yet. US presidents declare national days of things all the time. President Obama proclaimed the day of his own inauguration a National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation, and called on “all of our citizens to serve one another and the common purpose of remaking this nation”.
That just sounds like a friendlier version of the same thing. It sort of is. There’s even been a Day of Patriotic Devotion before, when Woodrow Wilson started drafting soldiers for the first world war. And, of course, 11 September is now Patriot Day. Basically, American politicians talk about patriotism a lot.
Blatant overcompensating. They just wish they had a queen. Yeah, maybe.
Still, at least everyone got a holiday on 20 January. Nope. It wasn’t a national holiday, just a day of “observance”.
Oh. Well at least they got to “observe” how patriotic they felt. Nope. They didn’t get that either. The national day was only formally declared on 24 January, when it was already over, although the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, did tweet about it on the day.
I love that guy. He’s going to be fun. That’s the spirit.
Do say: “I hereby proclaim a National Day of Being Patriotic Four Days Ago.”
Don’t say: “Crazy liberals say the Sudetenland is Czech. WRONG!”
