Meagan Day’s recent piece in Jacobin, “Patriotism Against Authoritarianism” argues that the outpouring of patriotism and flag-waving at the recent No Kings protests was “a good thing.”^[1]

Let’s start with what Day claims. She begins with countering the many affronts the Trump administration has made to its critics in civil society and details the impressive scale of the recent No Kings protests nationwide. From here, the heartwarming effect upon her of patriotic Americans taking to the streets at her local No Kings rally in California is recalled. We transition into a broader point on the question of “progressive patriotism” with Day arguing:

At Saturday’s protest, by contrast, we saw people from all walks of life professing sincere belief in and standing in defense of the American democratic project, whatever their criticisms of its execution… The Left need not confuse our criticisms of American domestic inequality and global domination with an aesthetic rejection of all things identifiably American. We should stand our ground and fight for those symbols. Our symbols are as mercurial and contradictory as our nation’s history: they can stand for exclusion or inclusion, for domination or equality, for our greatest moral ambitions or our basest impulses and most damning hypocrisies. Choosing to contest their meaning rather than reject them outright gives us political space to declare that poverty, war, prejudice, and political repression are betrayals of our highest values, rather than inevitable fulfillments of our flawed nation’s tragic destiny. In other words, it leaves room for political progress.

She concludes by affirmatively quoting Michael Harrington and uncritically venerating the No Kings rallies.

Complete nonsense. Where to begin? Perhaps by noting the irony of trying to justify a progressive patriotism and nuanced meaning in US symbolism by quoting the notorious social-chauvinist, Zionist, and anti-communist Harrington.

Let’s deal with some of the claims about No Kings from Day. The author implicitly frames the No Kings rallies as sharing common interest with the general “Left,” perhaps unsurprising given the eclectic and broad content of the word “progressive” for the Jacobin milieu. While recognizing that the localized character of the actions has led to rallies of varying positions (some local rallies, for example, have been officially sympathetic to socialism and the Palestinian cause), we need to give an honest assessment of these demonstrations. By and large, these protests stood for defending Americanism, the Constitution, norms, the rule of law, etc., from Donald Trump and his cronies. Let's rephrase that: the dominant trend at No Kings rallies was a defense of anti-democratic, liberal constitutionalism against anti-democratic Trumpian Bonapartism. Contrary to what Day implies, these rallies were not to defend an imagined democracy, but demonstrations in favor of defending the anti-majoritarian Constitution and US patriotism from their defilement at the hands of Trump and his stooges.

If we are to offer a short, general analysis of No Kings, it would be thus: a popular outpouring of elemental discontent against the tyrannical and destructive rule of the Trump regime, by and large, under the sway of popular liberalism and the Democratic Party. These actions, and others in the future, should be exploited by organizers in DSA to agitate not just against Trump, but for our party and against capitalism, militarism, imperialism, the Constitution, and of course, the Democrats as well. No doubt many disillusioned, radicalized and/or curious individuals signed up to join DSA as a result of our flyering efforts nationwide.

Now to Day’s broader claims. The question of “progressive patriotism” is in no way novel; the Days and Harringtons offer nothing original on this score. Despite its tired longevity, left patriotism in the imperialist countries has been remarkably unsuccessful as a tactic. As Harley Filben notes, “it is always a programme for a future that never arrives…[left patriotism] never, outside of think-tank circles and the broader intelligentsia [MH: where, we should add, Day finds herself], takes on the progressive valence promised.”^[2] Why is this so?

Capitalism leads to the creation of a global hierarchy of competing states, a division between oppressors and the oppressed, and between competing oppressors and competing oppressed. Contrary to the ideas of the Berniecrats, the bourgeois state is exactly that: a dictatorship of the bourgeois ruling class, forced to compete with its peers and committed to advancing its own economic, geopolitical, and ideological objectives on the world stage. Patriotism, explicitly or implicitly, leads to support for the improvement of one’s own country, which in turn amounts to nothing more than support for that state in the aforementioned international competition and for its ruling class. Chauvinism can only follow from here; one need look no further than the positive example of patriotism cited by Day, the lackey of US imperialism, Michael Harrington. So yes, we must categorically break with the bourgeois, reactionary idea of patriotism.

We must also recognize that the espousal of patriotism is not something a tribune of the people, an all-sided opponent of oppression and bourgeois class rule, stoops to. We must denounce Day as a tailist, as lagging behind elemental, ruling class ideology, and seriously neglecting the centrality of democracy. In the piece, it is clear that the Jacobin staff writer has not broken from the position of the bourgeoisie, and that she ultimately remains loyal to the US bourgeois state and its “project.” The “political space” of contention she invokes is within the boundaries of bourgeois thought, playing their game, which she cannot win. For, rightfully, taking aim at ghouls like Steve Bannon and J.D. Vance of forwarding “mystical nationalism,” she herself remains an adherent to the national mythos of US liberalism. She chases after the thoroughly ruling class, i.e., patriotic perspectives of the masses at the No Kings rallies, and aims to falsely inject democratic content into what were by and large liberal demonstrations (as explained above). Even if there is a grain of confused, spontaneous rebellion against domination and oppression amongst patriotic protest participants, the last thing a socialist should do is push them back into the camp of liberalism by singing the praises of US patriotism and ruling class ideology.

No, we stand against the scourge of US patriotism and for the international working class. Unlike Day, who argues from the perspective of her country without realizing she “is only a plaything in the hands of the imperialist bourgeoisie,” internationalists argue from the position of the class-conscious proletariat.^[3] The tribune of the people doesn’t tail behind what meaning US symbolism may or can have for an individual, rather they seek to raise the working class to the position of class consciousness, to internationalism. We recognize, as the advanced representatives of the working class globally, that our aim is to fulfill our share of the international movement. And with the US being the world’s most dominant imperialist power (the greatest oppressor), we have a particular imperative to be a revolutionary, principled wing of internationalism.

Perhaps we conclude with a passage that can bury the whole of Day’s article, an excerpt from a speech of a great proletarian internationalist which I’m sure she, and the rest of the Jacobin crowd, claim as an influence and inspiration, Eugene Debs:

Thousands of orators all over this broad land will glorify the institutions under which we live. In pride they will point toward Old Glory and declare that it is a flag that waves over a free country. In these modern days we hear very much about that flag and about the institutions over which it waves. I am not of those who worship the flag. I have no respect for the stars and stripes, or for any other flag that symbolizes slavery. It does not matter to me what others may think, say, or do. I propose to preserve the integrity of my soul. I will give you a transcript of my mind and tell you precisely what I think. Not very long ago the President of the country, in the attitude of mock heroics, asked who would haul down the flag. I will tell him. Triumphant Socialism will haul down that flag and every other that symbolizes capitalist class rule and wage slavery.^[4]

-Mikhail H.

1. Meagan Day, “Patriotism Against Authoritarianism,” Jacobin Magazine, October 22, 2025, https://jacobin.com/2025/10/trump-no-kings-patriotism-protest.

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2. Harley Filben, “Trying to Capture the Flag,” Weekly Worker, September 9, 2025, https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1551/trying-to-capture-the-flag/.

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3. V.I. Lenin “The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky,” Marxist Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/internationalism.htm.

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4. Eugene Debs, “The Mission of Socialism is Wide as the World: Speech at Chicago, Illinois — July 4, 1901," Marxist Internet Archive, https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1901/0704-debs-missionofsoc.pdf.

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