What is distinctive about nationalism as a political view?
Nationalism is a kind of patriotism: all nationalists are patriots, but not all patriots are nationalists. This is because patriotism is loyalty to a country, and not all countries are nations. It is possible (though quixotic) to be a Canadian or Belgian patriot; it is oxymoronic to be a Canadian or Belgian nationalist, because each of those countries incorporates two nationalities: English and French Canadians, French and Dutch Belgians. Nationalism is distinct from racism because race is only tangential to nationality, which is a cultural, not biological, fact. A nation can be multiracial (temporarily, at least; nationalists welcome “race-mixing” because it produces a more homogeneous population), and one race can be divided among many nations. Nationalists support the rights of the Israeli nation as they do every other nation’s, and also those of Croatia, Bosnia, and the Kosovar Albanians; racists hate the Jews and love the Serbs (presumably because Serbia is the nearest contemporar
