The pervasive mythology of American exceptionalism is essentially a religious doctrine positing that the US is essentially a perfect nation. Consequently, any issues arising within the system are perceived as external threats rather than inherent flaws. This mentality fuels the polarization between mainstream Republicans and Democrats, much like a religious schism. Both sides have a different interpretation of the doctrine and view each other as heretic traitors intent on destroying the nation.
The 15th to 19th centuries were full of bullshit wars against competing colonial powers just because of catholicism vs protestantism. I guess this is the modern Amerikan version.
American foreign policy is essentially just age of sail imperialism but with “democratic” subbing in for “Christian”.
“They’re not Christian so we can kill them and take their stuff” has become “They’re not democratic so we can kill them and take their stuff.”
Also works on the next level because even if someone outside the European ingroup becomes democratic or Christian, that democracy or Christianity just becomes a lever of control for extractive economics.
Or you just accuse the democracy of not actually being a democracy, e.g. China
yup
It’s an interesting point. I’ve been wondering, if the USA were to have a civil war, what would it be about? What are the ideological differences between the “Democrats” and “Republicans”. But then I suppose there wasn’t a massive difference between the Protestants and Catholics in European history.
Even their names, “Democrats” and “Republicans”. Are the Democrats not Republicans? They do believe in a republic, likewise the Republicans at least nominally support what’s called Democracy in the USA. Their names don’t even describe them. What do they disagree about exactly? Just niche issues like trans rights?
Exactly, the rift is over social issues that are safe for for capitalists.
External threat
Incidentally, the notion of a constant external threat fits perfectly into this model. It’s always external forces conspiring to tear down the beautiful city on the hill. Hence why we see constant accusations of people being puppets of Russia or China.
You’ll probably be interested in this theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion
Having grown up there I don’t inherently disagree with this idea
oh yeah that’s very much in line with what I was thinking
Yeah it feels pretty spot-on
This mentality fuels the polarization between mainstream Republicans and Democrats, much like a religious schism. Both sides have a different interpretation of the doctrine and view each other as heretic traitors intent on destroying the nation.
Nah, this is the only thing I can disagree upon
More or less, to me, regardless of what they do, nowadays, the mere partisan fight is a performance for voters…
Dem can’t live without Rep, because the latter is the conservative boogeymen cow that they will milk marginalized urban demographics for…
Rep can’t live without Dem, because the latter is the “progressive” version of that…
Either way, they get their coin in the drum, by both the voters, lobbyists, and the actual capitalist hands behind it
The last time they were serious about national heresy, it was in the Civil War, where Republicans were “progressive” and Democrats “conservative”
But, afterwards the more Lincolnite-Republicans acquiesced to Jim-Crow Democrats, in regards to the latter re-establish slavery by another name upon African Americans and populist settler agricultural hegemony, in exchange that Republicans continue their own industrialist and finance business…
it continues more or less the same, with switched modern faces in the 1960s we all know today
(A two-faced maneuver, you say that)
This is all before the concept of “external threats” that come from Global South was created as a concept… which they accuse each other of…
I agree with that, I was referring to the actual voting base itself though. I imagine that the cult leaders on each side are generally aware of the game they’re playing. It’s also worth noting that polarization is necessarily becomes more pronounced as the economic conditions decline.
