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One of our biggest problems as a country is that so many people consider our founding and history as divine and perfect and refuse to see any room for improvement, thus discounting people with legitimate grievances. 1/
The national myth of freedom and equality for all is perpetuated not only because it’s part of our education and tradition, but because the myth itself is so integral to the identity of those who have been successful. 2/
If the US is a meritocracy, a meritocracy guaranteed by divine providence to boot, then those who succeed consider themselves ordained and worthy. Any attempt to explain faults and privilege is then considered a personal attack. 3/
The need to then defend American divinity and the myth of equality becomes a personal one and any person dispelling it, for lack of a better phrase, becomes an agent of evil. It’s all wrapped up in evangelical notions of terrestrial battles of evil and good. 4/
Growing up in an evangelical community I watched the thing of national and spiritual myths, a knot of identity that has become so entangled now it’s positively flummoxing. But these communities do see America as a vessel of God in that war. 5/
With the notion of the US as God’s chosen, then the evangelical and surrounding spiritual communities, some practicing and some identifying culturally, America’s “goodness” becomes a matter of life and death and freezes out reformers. 6/
They literally want a Trump to hug the flag and tell them they’re not at fault because that tenuous relationship between God and country is all that stands I the way of an identity crisis and a major paradigm shift. 7/
As a result, we’ve seen the birth of a new American religion that is equal parts evangelical, spiritual, cultural, and nationalistic. It’s really daunting to look at, but it explains so much about what seems unexplainable. 8/8
