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:
The Founders never intended the federal government to grow to this size.
— Senator Mike Braun (@SenatorBraun) August 8, 2021
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.”)
The founders also never intended for Black people to be US citizens. https://t.co/7e8Xf7m9tX
— Marcus H. Johnson (@marcushjohnson) August 9, 2021
A few other things “The Founders” never intended:
1) Black people to be considered people
2) Women to be equal to Men
3) Poor whites being able to vote https://t.co/T2VwZWAB5e— Leslie Mac (@LeslieMac) August 9, 2021
The Founders also never intended for women and people of color to have the right to vote either, so I think it’s probably ok if we think outside of their limited perspective. https://t.co/nQdT11vgBK
— Kendall Brown (@kendallybrown) August 8, 2021
The Founders considered me property soooooo
Your point, sir? I’m still property? I’d like a follow up https://t.co/RiBN9rpssH
— Jessica Mason Pieklo (@Hegemommy) August 9, 2021
The “founders” never intended for black people to vote.
What’s your point? pic.twitter.com/NuuhA20yXV— Hugh G Merriman MD (@merriman_md) August 8, 2021
The Founders also didn’t intend for senators to be elected directly by the people, or for that electorate to include women, but again, things change, right?
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 9, 2021
Yeah because the Founders didn’t want anyone telling them how to treat the human beings they enslaved https://t.co/491Kkvkh0n
— Syihan 🏳️🌈 🇵🇸 (@ThatsWatSyiSaid) August 9, 2021
The Founders had slaves. And they didn’t have 50 states and 330 million people.
— Hannah Shearer (@HannahShearer7) August 9, 2021
Many of the Founders also intended the federal government to protect slavery, so who cares what they thought? https://t.co/fhJlGIrREg
— Max Berger (@maxberger) August 9, 2021
The Founders were racists and owned slaves. Who gives a fuck what they thought? https://t.co/L4PzFyNz5Z
— Communist Sailor Moon ☭🇬🇹 (@stealyoredbull) August 9, 2021
The founders never intended slavery to end or women to vote. https://t.co/0g56pWDSk7
— john r stanton (@dcbigjohn) August 9, 2021
The Founders never intended for me to be able to vote. https://t.co/rFkSLqCUAo
— Miranda Yaver, PhD (@mirandayaver) August 9, 2021
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:
Hey, @SenatorBraun, for that matter the founders also never intended for there to be a State of Indiana pic.twitter.com/D3LMDwsxaM
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) August 9, 2021
The Founders never intended for Indiana to be a state and yet here we are. https://t.co/zf2jbhy9x0
— Peter A. Shulman 📚 (@pashulman) August 9, 2021
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.
This is not untrue. The 1776 Project cannot respond to such a thing in any convincing manner, IMO. Of course, the founders were men of their time, and they deserve to be regarded as such, but those who deify them refuse to do this. The 1619 Project profits off of this massively. https://t.co/czodyLhAmJ
— Joseph Ford Cotto (@JosephFordCotto) August 9, 2021
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?
What does it mean to be American?
Who are the posterity, to whom this country was bequeathed, of the peoples described here by the founders? pic.twitter.com/5epbmJbmHj
— Jack Murphy 🇺🇸 ⚔️ (@jackmurphylive) July 25, 2021
Alexander Hamilton was BASED. pic.twitter.com/2O8987ihN8
— Jack Murphy 🇺🇸 ⚔️ (@jackmurphylive) July 25, 2021
The constitution is a coat fitted to the people of 1789.
We are no longer the people of 1789. https://t.co/Jaqx64gF5S
— Jack Murphy 🇺🇸 ⚔️ (@jackmurphylive) August 9, 2021