All political conflict in the United States reduces to one foundation issue: the struggle for the soul of the nation. Who were we? What are we? What shall we become? Does the idea of American contain and communicate an intrinsic meaning? Are we a light unto others?

In Jeremiadus, I consider the words of prominent media pundits and thought leaders on the political right — influential arbiters and exponents of conservative doctrine such as Antonin Scalia, Charles Krauthammer, Bill O’Reilly, Michelle Malkin, and Greg Mankiw. These individuals all willingly lead and speak for American political conservatism. They choose to articulate the zeitgeist of Constitutional purity, religious faith, personal responsibility, economic competition, and military preparedness. All would probably agree with me about political conflict in the United States — that it is not simply a raw grope for power, a kind of hustle, but also, and ultimately, a battle for the soul of the nation.

However, in this battle, the clarity of our thought matters. The integrity of our ideas matter. The tone of our debate matters. The commitment to civility matters. We don’t need to like or even respect each other. But we do need to deal with each other. And our dealings should be honorable and directed toward the ultimate goals we serve as social beings.

These voices of American conservatism all traffic in the currency of ideas. However, each in his or her own way has debased this currency by cynically exploiting emotions of fear and anger to divide and conquer. To this degree, their use of ideas about national identity and national purpose — which often reduce to common tropes or memes that trigger emotion rather than thought — is ultimately anti-intellectual, more about a primitive kind of self-propulsion than about absorbing some approximation of the truth into our public policies and personal commitments.

The dominant trope in the lexicon of American conservatives is the pure flame of American exceptionalism, the idea of our intrinsic virtue as a City Upon a Hill that gained special force in the speeches of that celestial conservative, Ronald Reagan, during the waning years of the Cold War. In the past 30 years, conservatives have appropriated this image to frame almost every policy debate — they use the concepts of American exceptionalism and of the exalted city, not as an ideal, but as a blunt force weapon.

I can certainly honor the idea of American exceptionalism as a calling to define, refine, and commit to our highest ideals as a nation. However, I dispute the conservative claim that American exceptionalism equates to American national virtue. In fact, as John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon, A Model of Christian Charity foresaw, the dark rhythm of our history as a nation has been the descent into various types of collective madness when we begin to love ourselves, or the idea of ourselves, too much.

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world…. We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.

John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity, 1630

Ultimately, Jeremiadus asks these questions. Can we be a light unto others if we are not a light unto ourselves? Can we be a light unto ourselves — and illuminate, and cultivate, the highest version of ourselves — if we do not address and contest the meaning and purpose of our most important ideas and commitments? In this contest, do we risk losing all when debate suffuses heat instead of light? In this heat of battle, do we all lose when thought ceases to matter? When ideas cease to matter? When civility ceases to matter?