I’m done being insulted by Republicans who think Democrats don’t deserve to wave the flag.

Conservative columnist Peggy Noonan accuses Democrats of stealing patriotism from Republicans. She and the rest of the GOP think only some Americans are allowed to be patriotic. They are wrong.

I had a great time at the Convention in Chicago this week. I got see old friends from campaigns past, and along with nearly everybody else, I thought the event was a great success.

Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan’s speech writer, and a powerful conservative columnist didn’t think so. On Friday she wrote,

They stole traditional Republican themes (faith, patriotism) and claimed them as their own. Also impressive was the degree to which they cast a magic conjuring sorcery spell in which viewers got the feeling the whole purpose of the Democratic Party is to break away from a grim and doom-laden reigning regime . . . when they’ve been in charge for 3½ years.

Let’s unpack her comments, because they are entirely revealing about today’s GOP.

Noonan is no big fan of Donald Trump, and yet her instincts here are still entirely consonant with his. She and the rest of the GOP think only some Americans are allowed to be patriotic, that only some Americans can have faith.

Think about that.

This terrible notion is the core of today’s GOP. Americans who aren’t Republicans aren’t really part of the country and if we have faith, it is false. This is the message they pound home on the campaign trail. Real Americans are entitled to vote, entitled to rights, entitled to rule. The rest of us, well we can labor in their shops and fields.

Well, no.

As far as entitlement goes, in this beautiful nation of ours, Ms. Noonan and the rest of them are entitled to their ideas, wrong as they are. Again, that’s something they would deny the rest of us by banning our books. But in the country we love, we dispute their ideas, not ban them.

And let’s be clear, this notion that some people count more than others, is their most cherished idea. It is a prominent feature of Republican campaigns, it was championed at their convention, and the road map to build a country based on this false division of us and them is called Project 2025.

Me with an American flag & a Kamala sign outside the United Center after night four of the Democratic National Convention.

You don’t steal patriotism when you wave an American flag. You don’t steal faith when you pray. Someone should ask Ms. Noonan what kind of patriot doesn’t want his neighbor to wave the flag? What kind of faith is it that complains when a neighbor prays?

Blinded by partisanship, she entirely missed an even bigger point. Democrats didn’t steal anything because unlike her crowd, we did not claim these things as our own. We proclaimed again and again, that we are one nation, all of us together, that each of us has obligations to each other, that no faction amongst us has a monopoly on patriotism, or faith, or common decency. Is it really so unimaginable that patriotism or faith things we can share? Must they be partisan things that one side can only have it if they steal it from the other?

Of course not.

She went on, in what will no doubt be the GOP strategy for the next 72 days, to dismiss the vision for America on offer during the convention as some kind of “sorcery,” and claim the real issue is what she calls the “doom-laden regime,” of the last 3 and a half years.

I’m sorry, but the author of Ronald Reagan’s soaring rhetoric knows better than to pretend a vision for our future is unimportant. That faith she monopolizes surely still recognizes Proverbs 29, “without vision the people perish.” She must know that our ideals hold us together, not the collection of policies that meet any particular moment in our history. No-one walks around talking about assumption of state debt, as important a policy question as that was in the 1790s, but we all remember the idea that all are created equal and have certain inalienable rights.

The problem for Ms. Noonan and today’s GOP is that they no longer share the ideals that for nearly 250 years have held this nation together and given us purpose at home and in the wider world.

So, she turns to the last three and a half years and argues that they constitute a “doom laden regime.”

Well, again, no.

“Doom-laden” is a good phrase, but it better applies to her team. The ones who say America is falling apart. The ones who won’t pass a border bill that they actually think will fix our border. The ones who want to toss our allies aside to make nice to dictators. The ones who think it’s okay for invading armies once again to conquer parts of Europe. The ones banning books. The ones tracking pregnant women.

The past three and half years saw America rise out of a mismanaged pandemic. They saw our economy grow stronger every month. They saw record employment. They saw shrinking inflation. Most importantly, in the past three and half years Americans came together to fight against the chaos, the negativity, and those very claims to entitlement that Ms. Noonan holds so dear. This is not doom-laden, it is doom defying. In communities all across America people are done with the cruelty, the cupidity, and corruption, of a power-hungry faction that still seeks to rule over the rest of us. And seeing so many of our neighbors, fellow citizens courageous enough to join this fight, is a source of enormous joy.

I don’t know about you, but I’m done being insulted by Republicans who think I don’t deserve to wave the flag. Let’s use these next 71 days to recommit to our ideals and to put this ugliness in behind us.