Revelation
This is an era of revelation, in the truest sense of the word. We are “revealing” to the world, and to ourselves, the reality of American history. Like any honest reckoning, it is painful, not the childhood story we remember and want it to be. George Washington didn’t chop down the cherry tree, though many “Muricans” want to believe in our historical fairy tales. Now, from those who are descendants of the suffered, we are hearing out loud some of the searing, honest, truth.
President Trump intentionally emphasized these revelations by his actions on Fourth of July weekend. First, he went to Mt. Rushmore to give a speech and create a spectacle. It was all summed up in one photo, the President and the First Lady standing on the stage, the monumental faces of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt staring over the scene.
Six Grandfathers
Mr. Trump gave a speech defending the Founding Fathers, the mythical story of “Murica,” and defending the “right” of privilege. And he did it at the “Six Grandfathers”, the Lakota name for the peak renamed “Rushmore” by the men who violated the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. The treaty guaranteed the Black Hills to the Lakota Sioux for their exclusive use. It lasted almost six years, before a brash young Colonel George Custer took his Seventh Cavalry in to “protect” the miners and settlers who were breaking the terms of the agreement.
We know how that turned out for Custer, but the real tragedy is that the sacred land of the Lakota was soon lost to them forever. So Mr. Trump’s appearance, driving away the Native American protestors and mandating fireworks in spite of the threat of forest fires, just amplified the point. ‘Murica is for winners: the Lakota were the losers, in 1874, and today. That’s what our “history” should be.
Immigrants
America is a miraculous nation. There is an immensely positive story to tell of American exceptionalism: a nation founded by immigrants, searching for a better way of life. Emma Lazarus defined it well in “The New Colossus”:
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
Immigrants, both voluntary and involuntary, built our “more perfect union”. That’s the story we have learned. But in this recent era of revelation, we are being held to the “lightning flame” of our original sin. Our nation was built upon the bodies of the aboriginal peoples, the “Indians” as Columbus called them, even though he was far from India. Thank you, Mr. President, for making that so clear by ignoring it completely at Six Grandfathers.
Slavery
On this Fourth of July, I watched a 1972 movie about the writing of the Declaration of Independence. 1776 glosses over many of the Founding Fathers imperfections (though their interest in sex was made abundantly clear). But it does confront the second original sin of “our more perfect union”, slavery. Benjamin Franklin laid out Founding Fathers choice outright when John Adams threatened to lose the vote for independence over slavery: “…how dare you risk our revolution”.
And John Rutledge, delegate from South Carolina made sure that everyone knew their complicity. Yes, it’s the men of the South who owned the slaves, but it’s the Boston merchants of the North who make “shillings” in the “Triangle Trade”. Bibles and rum to Africa, Slaves and Bibles to the West Indies, molasses back to Boston for rum, silver in the pockets of the Northern traders. The colonies depended on slavery, even from the very start, from South to North. No region was innocent. (If you’ve got the stomach for raw honesty – here’s the Rutledge song of the Triangle Trade).
Slaves, the “involuntary immigrants”, were as much a part of our “more perfect union” as the Germans, and the Irish, and the Italians and the Chinese. Their labor built America; slave hands set the bricks of the White House and the Capitol. Their sweat and blood is literally the foundation of our government.
Disrespect
And Washington DC is almost 50% African American. The mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, a Black woman, is tasked with trying to control the COVID-19 pandemic in her town. Common sense dictates that in a pandemic, social distancing and masks reduce the spread of the virus. It’s also commonsense that large crowds should be avoided. And that’s what the Mayor has said.
But the President determined that there would be a National Fireworks display on the Mall in Washington, and that there would be crowds for him to speak to. So there was an air show on the Fourth at the National Mall, and a Presidential speech, and not one but two sets of fireworks. The fireworks “bracketed” the speech. I imagine they thought it would give Mr. Trump a better crowd.
Hard to figure who “won”: the Mayor or the President. There were fewer people than the normal Fourth of July crowd, and most who came showed up for the second set of fireworks, after the President’s speech. But it was clear that the President disrespected the Mayor, and the majority-minority city. He did that with full knowledge of the message it sends.
Good Old Days
Mr. Trump, in both speeches, called for a return to the “good old days” when Christopher Columbus “discovered” America (Trump even remembered it was 1492) and the slaves were happy on the plantations. That mythology has long passed by: even back in the 1960’s I learned that as far as Europeans were concerned, Leif Erickson came to North America far before Columbus mislabeled his charts, and that the “Indians” didn’t really sell Manhattan for twenty-four dollars worth of beads and trinkets.
It is no accident that a portrait of Andrew Jackson now overlooks the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Jackson acted without regard for human rights. He was a slave owner, and the prime mover behind the Indian Removal, only a part of which was the Trail of Tears. Jackson saw himself as a general in charge of a nation. When the Supreme Court, led by venerable Chief Justice John Marshall, ruled against him; Jackson said, “John Marshall has made his decision, let him enforce it”.
Trump’s Strategy
Can’t you see Mr. Trump saying the same to John Roberts should they require him to turn over his tax returns? Or release those held in the border “camps”? Or demand that he vacate the White House after Joe Biden’s inauguration?
President Trump has determined that his political strategy is that white people want to go back to the 1950’s. We recognized it in 2016. In the first month of Trump World I wrote about it in Trump World and the Beaver. But in 2020, he is doubling down on that emphasis, willingly giving up any façade of recognizing discrimination and altering “the truth” to embolden his minority base of white people to come out and vote.
He is encouraging hate, and lies, and privilege: all in plain sight. He doesn’t want a multi-cultural America. That America won’t vote for him. He’s settling for ‘Murica – because they want Trump.
