American hero

Today: Josephine Riesman, New York Times-bestselling author of Ringmaster and True Believer.

Issue No. 156

Uncle Sam Deserves a Better Country
Josephine Riesman

Uncle Sam Deserves a Better Country

by Josephine Riesman

“No! I will never apologize for the United States!” he screams. 

His skinny body is restrained by hospital orderlies; he is clad in a tattered yet instantly familiar suit of red, white, and blue. His white beard and dramatic eyebrows flail with emotion. Uncle Sam is having an episode.

A doctor tries to intervene: “Sir, please understand—”

“I don’t care what the facts are!” he yells, wild-eyed. “Gridlock!”—“Message: I care!” 

“Uh, I’m sure you do, sir,” the doctor says. And then, a moment later: “There’s nothing we can do for you.”

“I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever—we begin bombing in five minutes!” Sam howls as he’s dragged out of the hospital.

Such is the America of Steve Darnall and Alex Ross’s visionary 1997 graphic novella, Uncle Sam. Which is to say, such is our America: a 250-year-old idea on the brink of death and begging for help. And it was our America in the ’90s, too.

Signs and portents. Symbols and icons. Legends and myths. The time is right now—today, this very moment—and the top-hatted embodiment of the United States is living on the streets. Good ol’ U.S. is down and out. 

Out of print for decades after its initial run with DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint, Uncle Sam was released last month by Abrams Books in a gorgeous new “Special Election Edition”, and it does, indeed, feel eerily relevant as the battle for the White House trudges on. But in re-reading Uncle Sam and speaking to its creators, I couldn’t help but think about it in the context of 9/11’s twenty-third anniversary.

Post-9/11 Americans are all victims of myth. We, the People, were attacked by Heaven-oriented fanatics, and then we were “defended” (by which I mean surveilled, detained, and imprisoned) by true believers in things like patriotism, capitalism, and their own Heaven. These visions coalesced into a war that left American politics and much of the Muslim world a cratered, cynical wasteland. There were a few who tried to stop the bloodshed, but those resisters didn’t stand a chance. They were fighting passionate belief with reason, and that never works.

If only the antiwar movement after 9/11 had read Uncle Sam. It contains what might be the ultimate truth of politics: The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a myth is a good guy with a myth.