Ian Buruma reaches far for his claim that Stephen Miller was racist when accusing Acosta of “cosmopolitan bias”. The noun cosmopolitan, I do know, has a Greek etymology. I did not know, however, that usage of “cosmopolitan” was once a derogatory noun. Now I know more history, thanks to Buruma. But let’s not confuse history with today.



“Cosmopolitan” is a popular magazine that one can purchase worldwide. Would all of its readers be anti-Semetic? As Buruma wonders, so I wonder. I wonder whether the many today who consider themselves cosmopolitan--professors and others--consider themselves anti-Semitic. And today’s dictionary shows no usage of “cosmopolitan” as Buruma resurrects it.



Miller used the word as an adjective, “cosmopolitan bias”. It seems that cosmopolitan, today, is becoming synonymous with “borderless”. Miller was trying to show that Acosta was what he is, an advocate of being cosmopolitan: “free from local, provincial, or national ideas, prejudices, or attachments; at home all over the world.” (Dictionary.com). Hardly something any national government would endorse.



Hollander Buruma uses his vocabulary lesson, reviving a derogatory usage of “cosmopolitanism”, as a crack to crawl through towards his real target, Trump, whom few cosmopolitans would stand up for or even next to. Buruma writes that “it is hard to believe that Trump, or his ideologues, like Miller or Bannon, are interested in expanding democratic rights.” That’s strange. For that is precisely what Trump is trying to recover and promote, America’s democratic rights—not what the democrats of Mexico or Communist China or the European Union or Russia or Venezuela see as “democratic rights.” After all, democracies differ.



Trump is American. One who is proud of America. One who like other Americans and other countries of the world flourish because of what America has been and is, regardless of those inside and outside of America who have tried and do try to bring her to her knees.



Cosmopolitan bias, like Acosta, is what Buruma holds.

