The successful candidacy of Donald Trump and his subsequent rebuilding of the Republican party has been a tectonic event in American politics. It has forced me to re-evaluate and recalculate my understanding of this country. Previously, I thought democratic and egalitarian ideals were the ascendant values of this country.
All men are created equal, was a four-word summary. If you look at the history of this country through those four words, you can see evolution and progress throughout our history.
But there has always been an countervailing force.
Whites have primacy. It was even codified in the Constitution in the
three-fifths of a human being compromise. A country which began with a proclamation "All men are created equal" would become a country where every 7th American was owned by another American.
The
logos of our country is
all men are created equal. The
mythos of our country is
Whites have primacy.
Did the civil war finally settle the question? No. The Jim Crow system of justice ensured that the savage treatment of African Americans did not end with slavery. Jim Crow was a system that rewarded a white aristocracy with power in exchange for cruelty and oppression. The sense of White entitlement was enshrined as a part of Southern culture.
Nowhere do you see this more than in the Southern effort to hold on to Generals of the Civil War. Tennessee recently celebrated Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest was a military leader of unquestioned brilliance at tactical adaptation in the heat of battle. He was also a slave owner, massacred prisoners of war, and was the first Grand Dragon of the Klan.
So in the year 2019 the state of Tennessee commemorates a traitor, war criminal, and leader of an American terrorist organization.
The President's rally yesterday was in Greenville, North Carolina, a city that is 38% African American. The audience was a virtual sea of white faces. SEND HER BACK! SEND HER BACK!, the crowd roared, while Trump preened like Mussolini.
Carl Jung said Adolf Hitler succeeded because he successfully tapped into the collective unconscious of the German people. The idea of the
Volk, where assimilation equals annihilation, is very powerful. And as the white position of ascendancy in this country has diminished, the belief among many whites is that they are losing 'their' country.
Trump has tapped into that feeling and wrapped himself in the flag as the last bastion against the foreign hordes and their fellow travellers among the Liberal Elite. Many wonder why so many of Trump's statements are fact-free. For his followers, MYTHOS Trump's LOGOS. Trump operates on a very unconscious, intuitive level. Trump's statements resonate with the values of the American Mythos.
When you listen to Trump with your ears attuned to the American Mythos, you can hear the power of his message.