Piercing the American religion

A friend asked a question on the board last night: "Psychologically, what makes 'us' hate protesters so much? What causes people to be more viscerally upset by people marching and yelling and waving signs or taking a knee or even doing property damage than they are by straight-up murder?" Putting aside the obvious racist implications for a moment, by response was this:

The simplest answer is this: Pointing out that something is wrong with America makes people uncomfortable because patriotism is the national religion of this country and it essentially lacks foundation. When you question someone's religion, if they're a committed believer, then they rely on their faith in the tenets of that religion. They believe in an idealized set of principles that are embodied by faith in a higher power or mysteries that can neither be easily explained or easily disproved. Neither you nor they can prove that their god does not exist. Similarly, neither you nor they can prove that said god exists. Their faith is based upon the idea that there is a higher purpose for themselves and for everyone.

Patriotism, OTOH, is based on ideas that are rooted in reality. It just may not be the reality that everyone wants to face. Mo Wagner, former University of Michigan and current LA Lakers basketball player, was tweeting yesterday about how when he first came to the US, everyone greeted him with: "Welcome to America, the greatest country in the world!" Everyone. It happened so often that it went from surprising to funny to kind of weird. There is a mindset that exists among Americans that the US is the pinnacle achievement in socio-political history; that since this is the "land of the free" and the "birthplace of democracy" and the "land of opportunity" to which so many wish to come, everything about it must be good and proper.

But the truth is that the US is all of those things for really only a very few people. For everyone else, it can be those things, but often is markedly different, in both degree and substance. When people point that out, many people react viscerally, as if you've questioned their personal character. Colin Kapernick was attacked for kneeling during the national anthem when he attempted to call attention to racism and police brutality. But for many, he wasn't pointing out racism. He was defiling the anthem! He was disrespecting the flag and the troops! He was despoiling our football, that most American of games! But what he was really doing was pointing out that it's only the "land of the free" for part of the population and people really don't want to hear a contrary opinion to what they've been taught since they were young and have had continually reinforced on a daily basis from news and entertainment media, every time a politician opens his or her mouth, and from every flag-waving sports entity that insists on playing the national anthem before every game.

Hell, they make young children recite a pledge of allegiance to a piece of cloth at the start of every school day. What greater sign of religion is there than everyone mumbling the national psalm together? It ends with "... with liberty and justice for all." But any casual experience in many American communities will tell you that the "liberty" part is often based on your skin tone and there sure as shit ain't no justice for anyone who doesn't have the money to buy it. But if you question the national religion, you're "unAmerican." You've stepped outside the illusion and are implicitly mocking anyone left within it. Many people object to that because, unlike actual religions, their belief isn't rooted in an idea about a higher power. It's rooted in the concept that America is the best thing ever and can't be questioned in the first place. Any evidence to the contrary must be based on the people being wrong; not the place. That's a lack of foundation. There is no faith there; just an insistence that a mirage is real.

Donald Trump is the walking manifestation of that insistence. His contradictory message- that America is the greatest nation on Earth and yet needs to be "made great again" -is the perfect embodiment of a population that knows the core is rotten but insists on shining the apple. It's like sports fans insisting that their team is the greatest ever, while fans of all the other teams chuckle behind their hands. Samuel Johnson said that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" because he knew that vermin like the current president and Senate Republicans would continue to flog it as their lone defense against the perfidy of their actions. He also knew that much of the public would respond because, just as with organized religion, most people need something to believe in. Not everyone can be comfortable living in a Hobbesian world. But, at the very least, people should be willing to argue the point without sheltering in a bunker of distractions from the reality that faces us.