Posted on August 13, 2021

The Collapse of America’s Civic Religion

Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, August 12, 2021

The federal government is about to spend about $3.5 trillion dollars on the Democrats’ budget proposal. Former president Donald Trump said the bill “destroys our Borders and the rule of law by granting dangerous amnesty that will flood America’s beautiful cities.” The Democrats admit the bill will give “lawful permanent status for qualified immigrants” — and they will make sure that a great many will be “qualified.”

Even National Review says this “radical” bill is “meant to transform the United States into a place more closely resembling a European social-welfare state.” Though some Republicans (including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell) supported the “infrastructure bill” of about $1.2 trillion, not one supports this far bigger budget proposal that was forced through the senate on party lines immediately afterward.

Republican Senator Mike Braun tweeted:

This quickly became a trending topic on Twitter. The responses showed that the Founders have no moral authority in the eyes of many residents. (I deliberately avoid using the word “Americans.”)

These tweets unintentionally confirm what race realists and white advocates argue. The United States of America was established as a white nation. The Founding Fathers took white identity for granted. The 1790 Naturalization Act limited citizenship to free white persons of good character. Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled in 1857 that blacks “were not intended to be included” in the new political community and “formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration.” The chief justice’s legal reasoning may or may not have been correct in Dred Scott v. Sanford, but he was clearly right historically. Did the Founders intend, as Taney pointed out in a reductio ad absurdum, for the “entire human family” to be included in the United States? Did they think all people (including slaves) were somehow equal?

The Founders were clearly much closer to “white nationalists” than to today’s liberals. They were much closer to our point of view than to National Review or Fox News. If America is supposed to fight “racism,” it’s hard to explain why the Founders should be honored at all. They believed in a classical republicanism, not universal suffrage, which they thought would be mob rule.

The only justification for honoring the Founders by today’s standards is that they really wanted egalitarianism in their hearts, but couldn’t quite live up to their own ideals. They wrote nice words about equality and the words “all men are created equal” define our country. Thus, our history is an eternal struggle to live up to their vision as we pursue “a more perfect union.”

Obviously, that isn’t what the Founders wanted. Progressives understand this. They are impatient with having to pay ritual tribute to dead white men they despise. That’s why they make once-unthinkable proposals such as blowing the presidents off of Mount Rushmore. Unless whites regain a sense of pride and identity, that will surely happen.

There are also ignoramuses at work. Senator Mike Braun — who thought he would score points by appealing to the Founders — represents Indiana. Sports broadcaster turned political commentator Keith Olbermann tweeted:

Have they never heard of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787? The Founders wanted the United States to dominate the Continent, to create what Thomas Jefferson called an “empire of liberty.” British attempts to restrict western settlement were an important cause of the Revolution. The Indiana Territory was established in 1800; many of the Founders were still politically active.

There is a bigger problem. So long as American conservatives are trapped in the conceptional framework of the Civil Rights movement and racial egalitarianism, there is no way they can defend the Founders. It does no good to claim they were egalitarian by the standards of their time or that what they set in motion led to equality. The historic American nation’s triumphs were a white nation’s triumphs. Non-whites have little reason to celebrate them.

The real question has always been: Who is American? If it’s anyone who happens to be here, America is just a landmass, with no value except its economic resources.

If the United States means anything worth fighting for, its history begins with the European discovery of the New World. Its identity took shape with the English settlement of North America. It culminated with self-government and independence. However, even our independence does not separate us from our mother civilization and larger racial family. America is an outgrowth of white, Western Civilization in North America. When it stops being that, it is no longer something we can value.

Unless conservatives are willing to say this openly, they will not be able to defend the memory of the Founders or the traditional symbols they claim to value. They will also not be able to preserve the Constitution or the “limited government” that the Founders supposedly gave us.

This doesn’t mean America shouldn’t be treasured. It’s because we love it that we mourn what has been taken from us. If the Founders deserve criticism, it’s because they gave in to the egalitarian temptation. We’d be better off if they had explicitly spelled out what they took for granted.

Still, Twitter controversies like this one are productive. They show that America’s “civic religion” is crumbling. It’s hard enough to unite one people of common blood behind a “proposition nation.” It’s impossible to lump together races and ethnic groups behind a vague egalitarian idea. It’s especially absurd when the same government that supposedly represents all “Americans” has a racial caste system that rewards non-whites and discourages assimilation.

The Twitter controversy shows that we should have listened to the Founders. Their wisdom isn’t outdated; it’s more important than ever. We should think more carefully about who should participate in the political community. The Founders should never have given lip service to the idea of equality. Universal suffrage and mass immigration are a disaster. America panders to non-whites but can’t even get basic patriotism in return. It’s whites who keep this shabby system stumbling along. It’s high time to think of alternatives. Aren’t we supposed to be a “revolutionary” people?