“What’s wrong with nationalism?”

When asked this question a few months ago by the host of a MAGA podcast, I replied with another question: “What’s wrong with extremism?”

For me, just about everything. Extremism is too much of something, and it’s a mental pathology regardless of what it is that extremism is too much of. This is the case with all sorts of things, not just politics.

A glass of wine with every dinner is delicious, but a bottle of whisky every day is toxic. Dieting to keep your weight down is advisable, but not to the point of developing anorexia. Driving fast is a pleasure, but driving too fast is a risk.

Nationalism is patriotism pushed to an extreme, turning one’s country from an object of love to a cult. That’s why patriotic, especially intelligent, conservatives wince at any display of nationalism. We detest it on aesthetic, religious, philosophical and historical grounds.

The latter is significant because any student of history will know how easily a political cardsharp can pull the ace of patriotism out of his sleeve. That’s what Dr Johnson meant in 1775, when he described patriotism as “the last refuge of a scoundrel”.

He was talking not about patriotism as such, but about his political opponent, William Pitt, who Johnson felt was constantly invoking patriotism for nefarious political reasons. More recent examples of such misuse are too numerous and too widely known to cite.

Suffice it to say that every manner of scoundrel has been known to manipulate patriotism, turning it into nationalism and putting it to evil use.

And even when evil men start out as internationalists, they often turn to nationalism as their stratagem for controlling the masses. Stalin, for example, discovered in 1941 that his slaves wouldn’t fight for workers of the world as readily as they would for their slave master, Russia.

One key difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the former is a deep but usually silent feeling, whereas the latter is always loud-mouthed. Patriots love silently; nationalists screech, often to drown out voices of moderation and decency.

As the Russian satirist Saltykov-Shchedrin (d. 1889) quipped, “If you hear someone shouting about patriotism, be sure that something has been stolen somewhere.”

It’s a curious phenomenon that an uxorious man who’d never dream of telling all and sundry how much he loves his wife may still be prepared to scream his nationalism off the rooftops. However, taking this juxtaposition a step farther, such a man may indeed begin to tell people how much he loves his wife when he realises that all his friends and relations dislike her.

A similar onset of defensive patriotic loquacity is reactive, and it can easily become overreactive, with nationalism beckoning at the end. Such nationalism may still be reprehensible, but it’s now understandable.

It’s instructive, I think, to compare British and American brands of patriotism. Both nations are patriotic, but Americans are more susceptible to nationalism.

Most Englishmen I know find American hand-on-heart patriotism a tad vulgar, but then parvenus usually are. By European standards, the US is a rich Johnny-come-lately, and such countries are similar to such people in their urge to self-assert.

Moreover, Americanism isn’t so much a national, much less ethnic, identity as an idea. And cultish loyalty to an idea demands frequent reiteration more than, say, does the quiet affection an Englishman feels for English things and character traits.

That’s why the US has more national flags per square yard, why American pupils start their day (or at least used to) by reciting the Oath Of Allegiance, why American politicians end every speech with a shout of “God save America”, why every American puts his hand over his heart when the national anthem is played.

Nations whose identity has been formed over millennia don’t require such visible tokens of patriotism. That’s partly why English patriotism is less likely to overstep the demarcation line beyond which healthy patriotism turns into malignant nationalism.

Englishmen are self-confident enough not to become defensive about their identity – unless they feel it’s under attack and in need of defending. When pushed, they’ll push back, and their patriotism can then indeed turn to nationalism.

That insipient tendency is observable now, and it can become rampant before long. For decades, schools, universities and politicians have been busily indoctrinating Englishmen to be ashamed of being English.

Any affection for England felt or especially expressed instantly got them branded as Little Englanders, parochial fanatics deaf to the delights of multi-culturalism. The glorious history of their country, which taught the world the meaning of just government, is depicted as nothing but a continuous chain of violent oppression, colonialism and racism. Their neighbourhoods are being turned into something they no longer recognise as England.

That creates a fertile soil for the sprouting of violent nationalistic demagogues like Tommy Robinson. They spread their poisonous seeds, but the earth is increasingly ready to receive them.

And even such traditional symbols of national identities as flags are becoming more ubiquitous – and not just when the England football team is involved in an international tournament. That’s an offence to our authorities, who are all complicit in indoctrinating public contempt for things English.

That’s why council officials in our two biggest cities have armed themselves with secateurs and started cutting down Union Jacks and St George’s Cross flags. And not just in those two cities: the same is going on in Newcastle, Bradford, Norwich, Swindon – all over the country.

Lest you think those officials suffer from an acute case of vexiphobia, put your concern to rest. It’s only British and English flags that they are averse to.

Thus, as they were taking down British flags, council officials in the East London area of Tower Hamlets and in Birmingham happily left Palestinian flags fluttering in the wind.

Now, Tower Hamlets has a Muslim population of 40 per cent, and all of Birmingham some 30 per cent. Still, the last time I looked, those places are still in England, not in Sinai, Gaza or the Arabian desert. If their streets are to be hung with any flags and bunting, these should be British or English, not Palestinian, Russian or North Korean.

Newton’s Third Law says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That’s in nature. In politics, some actions produce an opposite but a much stronger reaction.

The action of stamping national pride in the dirt and, even worse, trying to offer an alien ideology as a replacement, may turn the quiet, deep-seated English patriotism into a thunderous, eventually violent nationalism.

When this happens, violent thugs like Tommy Robinson may end up sitting not in prison but in Parliament, and England will lose her admirable quality of moderation and a sense of balance. That means England will turn into something else, and whenever a nation suffers such metamorphoses, the result is never pleasant.

Why, before long a chap standing for a parliamentary seat in Fulham and Hammersmith will start ending every speech with “God bless the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland!” And, what’s worse, no one will laugh.