Wither the Dream?
David R. Weiss – January 20, 2024
There is no ‘h’ missing in that opening word. I am not asking for directions. Least of all to Iowa. No, consider this an imprecatory op-ed.
This piece has been percolating since the Iowa Republican caucuses last week, but it’s not about Iowa’s Republican voters. It’s about MAGA America’s moral vision. That vision will shape America’s vote next fall (as it shaped Iowa’s vote last week). And, unchecked, it will wither the dream.
Which dream? Not the “American dream” of material prosperity, personal liberty, and individual success. Rather, I mean the dream of the America-that-could-be, were we ever to pursue our highest ideals as fervently as we cling to our most dangerous national myths. The promise of inclusive justice, far-reaching and secure civil rights, vigorous voter protections, and a commitment to mutual care over corporate or individual profit. That dream. It’s never yet been realized; not even close.
Indeed, it’s fair to say the founders themselves never intended for it to be realized. They almost certainly and “innocently” imagined their ideals reaching expansively toward a widening horizon of people … just … like … them. (White, propertied, men.) That doesn’t demean the dream itself. All of our dreams are framed (and thus limited) by the contexts of our lives. If we’re fortunate, the ideals behind those dreams carry seeds that can take root in the tiniest of cracks and bear within them the power to split concrete.
The ideals that drive the dream of the America-that-could-be carries such seeds. We saw this in struggle to abolish slavery. In the suffrage movements for blacks and women. In the labor movement. In the civil rights movements for women, persons of color, and LGBTQ persons. Though far from complete, the seeds of that dream have done much good.
But today that dream, its ideals and the seeds they carry are in peril. There are those—and their number is not small—who would wither the dream. Increasingly the moral vision that is broadly embodied (and emboldened) by the MAGA-constrained GOP is a vision of an America hellbent on doing just that. It is a dehumanizing vision, one set against the grounding ideals not only of Christianity, but also of humanism, and the core values of all the world’s great religious traditions.
Read those last two sentences as many times as you need to for them to sink in: The MAGA-constrained GOP vision for America is hellbent on withering the dream of the America-that-could-be. It is a dehumanizing vision that runs directly counter to the grounding ideals of Christianity, humanism, and the core values of all the world’s great religious traditions. This moral vision, wrapped in an American flag and dipped in “Christian” rhetoric is actually a consummate rejection and betrayal of both America’s highest ideals and Christianity’s deepest moral vision. And now—right now, this very year—it hopes to wither the dream once and for all.
In practice, all politics comes down to how communities choose to hold and share power—for whose benefit and through what processes. The often unseen, sometimes intentionally hidden infrastructure of politics is the notion of “moral community.” That is: who counts—whose wellbeing matters—when decisions are made? The systemic shortcomings—today we rightfully recognize them as systemic injustices—in the founders’ social vision were largely the result of the limits to their moral community. Enslaved persons, indigenous persons, black persons, women, those who didn’t own property, the poor, and poor children—all found their moral membership, the fullness of their personhood, unrecognized and unprotected. The ideals of the nation didn’t encircle them because they were left outside—excluded from—the moral community.
Today’s MAGA-constrained Republican Party has fashioned a moral community intentionally hemmed to exclude or diminish the humanity of a multitude of others through the not so subtle culture of xenophobia. Jesus would be appalled. So would Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, Harriet Tubman, Buddha, Confucius, Black Elk, Rumi, and many others whose perceptive wisdom, kindness, and moral courage has marked them as enlightened.
Within the MAGA moral vision, othering runs rampant. It is a white supremacist, nationalist, patriarchal moral community to which certain women and persons of color are extended guest privileges … but only insofar as they fit within its unquestioned value structure. Nikki Haley is an example of a woman of color who moves precariously across this landscape. She must deny the systemic racism in American society to maintain her place in the GOP community (even though she experienced it herself). And even so, Trump openly questions the legitimacy (the purity!) of her status in “his” moral community and asserts that the MAGA base will never support her.
This othering includes the diminishment (or altogether erasure) of the humanity of immigrants, persons of color, incarcerated persons, LGBTQ persons, women, hourly workers, and the poor (as well as a functional contempt toward the natural world). What becomes clear is that the MAGA moral community is set up according to strict binaries; within these binaries there are rigid power relationships; and those persons who challenge these power relationships must have their personhood diminished or erased so as to preserve the purity and order of the moral community.
What becomes equally clear is that the MAGA phenomenon is less about “family” values than about power. It naturally allies itself with values (rooted in identities rather than principles) that are well-suited for conserving power—and those values are “family” values only in the sense that they allow for the narrowing down of “family” into a moral community of persons … “just like us” (or willing to act within our power structure according to our terms).
As the 2024 election cycle unfolds, it will be helpful (although unsettling) to consider the policy positions and the rhetoric of Trump and other MAGA/GOP candidates through the prism of moral community, binary values, and the dream of the America-that-could-be. I think it will be quickly and painfully clear that they represent lightly veiled attempts to define “America” as a moral community that sounds expansive but is bounded by values that leave a multitude of us and our friends outside. And when it comes to moral communities, being on the outside is being in the wilderness. Exposed. Vulnerable. Targeted. And very much beyond the reach of the dream.
In future essays this spring I will explore further some of the ways this othering plays out. Including how religion plays into it. And how the Democratic establishment (including Joe Biden) misses critical opportunities to reach those disaffected voters (disaffected fellow citizens!) drawn to the MAGA/GOP fold but not hardcore members of the MAGA base. In this failure, Democrats themselves raise the risk of a catastrophic MAGA victory this fall.
Finally, I hope to offer some thoughts to engage the shrinking but all the more critical “moveable middle” of the electorate. Come November, these persons, who are hardly our closest political allies, will cast the ballots that decide whether this is the year we wither the dream. It’s time we figure out how to invite these folks to join us in pursuing the America-that-could-be.
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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.