American identity is in truth complex, rich, and defies reduction. But when did that ever stop us? Let's look
for our monothetic marker, that one thing we share across our political,
economic, and nationalist identity. How's this one? We
think we’re great, even if we’re not willing to say exceptional. We not only tell ourselves this story, we
assert it, claim it, justify it, and vindicate our faults by it. We’re great and mean to be again and again.
We live for the self-applause that congratulates and blame
everyone else for what has gone wrong.
America's brand is greatness self-conferred. It is in the excess of that greatness we more
often than not find ourselves. That this
has become our collective sociopathic default is, so far, the defining feature
of this current, young American century.
Allow me some examples to nuance the point, though nuance is a very unAmerican thing to do. Unless
you’re Obama, then it’s a very Obama thing to do, which you will recall was also made a benchmark for reasserting our real Americanness as anti-Obama and so rejecting all things
pansy.
Amidst the strange amalgam of ideas that populate every David
Brooks essay, the one in today’s New York Times (March 17, 2017, “Let Bannon be
Bannon!”) includes both indefensible absurdity and some small kernel of
actuality. One is tempted to ask David
personal questions about how his complicity in right wing ascendency couples to
his self-branded moderation. He seems to
be working this out in every article, but I digress. Digression is my own form of self-branded
excess. It too is unAmerican because it's
prolix and refuses to get to the point.
We're supposed to be the get to the point people.
But the kernel of truth that fuels honest contemplation is
David’s observation, “Donald Trump doesn’t really care about domestic policy;
he mostly cares about testosterone…He wants to cut any part of government that
may seem soft and nurturing, like poverty programs. He wants to cut any program
that might seem emotional and airy-fairy, like the National Endowment for the
Arts. He wants to cut any program that might seem smart and nerdy, like the
National Institutes of Health.”
I think a great deal about America’s deep divisions and its
collective ethos. What holds together a
culture that has been built on diversity and dominance? With that comes the most commendable features
of the American Experiment ---equality, the common welfare, liberty, the
pursuit of happiness---and our most abject failures evident in a history rife
with prejudice and exploitation. No
civilization escapes its contradictions anymore than it is likely to embrace
them. We console and inspire ourselves
to be better while we reject and ignore the difficult conversations. Nations and cultures are in this sense really
not much different than individuals in relationships, but that is a matter for
another day.
Not only is Trumpism built on America’s John Wayne no
apologies, no excuses model, it fashions from tiny hands a smaller world built
on a vocabulary of domination, strength, winners and losers, and, as David
Brooks puts it, on testosterone. This
aligns the great again and winning again memes with the undeniable sexism,
anti-intellectualism, and unconcealed admiration for authoritarianism that
marks the Trump Administration. But
David points to a larger problem, with the usual requisite “who me?” plausible
deniability that marks his process of self-denial and congratulation.
What Trump cares about is the dominant paradigm of American
identity. We exhibit a love of
superiority and machismo that gives us both that can-do spirit and marks out in
bold Sharpie and clumsy crayon just how primitive, tragically shallow, and
fixated we are on specious muscularity.
Our favorite professional sport organizes itself around programmatic
violence that features military music, uniforms that conceal vulnerable faces in
favor of gladiatorial chest thumping, and all the rest. The once national pastime too is now a game
based on overpowering, well, everything that could otherwise be finessed. But even at its best, the slow-paced rituals
of baseball never allow the game to end in a tie, much less reveal too much
vulnerability.
Trump appeals to his 46% currently with an 80% approval
rating because he reminds them at every turn that winning negotiations are
meant to establish supremacy, subordination of the opponent, and the
prerogative to write the script to suit whatever the moment commands. Everything else is girlie-man. America’s defiance, expressed so ably on the
back of pick up trucks with pissing Calvins, profane bumper stickers, and transparent
symbols of crude disdain for others is our stock in trade. We’re not a new America, we’re just more
America than we have been willing to unleash before. We’re simply more emboldened and shameless
about what is quintessentially American: the six-gun cowboy, the muscle car, ummm truck,
lots of beer, and a God that takes care of all the rest.
What makes our ugly American so very Trump is that a person,
dare I say, a woman of accomplishment, patient fortitude, and ambition is only
to commended when there is no sign of the feminine infecting our intractable
obsession with America’s needy virility.
John Wayne, Reagan, and President Cheney are the true emblems that have
emerged in Trump but with considerably less refinement and distillation. Yes, that is possible and that we are
surprised by the degree of vulgarity is at the very heart of the larger issue.
We Americans are still Randolph Scott and Jimmy Stewart when
we want to project our soft sided masculinity but Prince is likely a step too
far for at least 46% of the population.
He might also be just a bit too black but how racist we are comes with
the same impenetrable certitude that accompanies narrow our hearts and minds to
affirm the one true identity. Coach
played only to win and losing was only cause for whatever must be done to win again. Losing will not be permitted. But, more importantly, it must not be admitted
except for the purposes of assigning the right blame.
