In the wake of President Trump's "shithole" comment, I have noticed one well intentioned but not quite accurate theme in the responses. It essentially boils down to "this is not who we really are". This is usually offered by good people who are trying to tell others (other nations, other people) that the President's racism does not have the support of the whole country—that there is real opposition to him. And I think that is a good thing to want to communicate, as far as it goes, but I don't think that framing—this is not who we are—is the right one because... well... this is exactly who we are. The United States is the nation which made Trump possible. Yes our #resistance is real, but our bigotry, our racism, our xenophobia — that is real too. Trump wasn't an accident. Trump was encouraged, and tolerated by enough of us that he became our executive, our leader.
Trump does not represent my values, my interests, or my desires, but the plain fact is that he does represent the nation of which I am a part. He does represent me; to me that is one more reason to resist him.
I worry a little, that the desire to say "this isn't us" comes from a desire to pretend that a mythology has more historicity than it does. There is a real United States and then there is also a dream of the United States. The real, historical United States is a country born in the blood of genocide and built on the back of chattel slavery. The real historical United States has, truly, built and accomplished great things; but far too often it has accomplished those great deeds over the corpses of others. The real, historical United States really is a purveyor of beauty, grandeur, holocaust, theft, and oppression. The real, historical, United States has nailed the body of Jesus to the front of our Roman Imperial temple. That, horrific and grand nation is the real and historical United States.
But there is also a mythology. And as mythologies go, the myth of the Unites States is a good one. It is a myth of all persons, free and equal in dignity. The myth is a myth of liberty and liberation. Of siblings, children, and parents; of hard work and good play; of education and simplicity. As an aspiration it is able to move us closer to the good—as many of the great myths are able to. The danger is in confusing our history with our myth. The history is who we are, the myth is who we want to be. I have never found this more perfectly represented than by Langston Hughes:
O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be.
"The land that never has been yet—and yet must be." We are, still, the land of Donald Trump. We will, now, forever be the land that once elected Donald Trump. That is who we are; it is not who must be.
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