I guess you are right — we suck and we should surrender and let Trump make America even worse because our ancestors were evil bastards and we aren’t perfect yet. At least then we won’t be pretending we aren’t 100% irredeemably evil.
When you learn the difference between a dream and a lie, maybe you will find a way to complete victory over the lies and injustices that are part of this nation’s foundation.
The line, “American history, despite periods of nativism and bigotry, has from the first been a grand experiment in bringing people of different backgrounds together, not pitting them against one another,” is NOT empirically false. It is one thread of the story. It describes what America should be, what most of us want it to be, and the direction towards which it has been moving (far too slowly).
The difference between the dream and the lie is what gives your list its horror. If America weren’t the Grand Experiment, then all of that would be just another chapter in the long history of nations ruling by power and cruelty, and we should just celebrate because we are the nation with the power. But we are more than that, and difference between what we should be, what we can be, and that list is truly heartbreaking.
For some, the Grand Experiment was and is a lie used to cover the deep and horrible wrongs you describe. But for others, then and now, it is a dream that we are working towards. And making progress towards. 100 years ago most Americans that had any kind of power would have looked at your list and said “hell yeah!” Today, most of us look at that list with horror.
The use of that discomfort, complexity, and painful history, at this historic moment, is to say “we can be better than that.” That is not a lie.
These writers are doing what they can, using the power of their voices to try to stop a disaster that threatens to move America towards it’s nightmare side. It’s not enough, but it’s what they can do, and it may help. But I guess it would be better for them to wallow in guilt instead, because it seemed better to them, and more effective, to focus on what America should (and can) be than to bemoan what it has been (and to a lesser degree, still is).
If America is no more than the worst of its history and foreign policy, why should I even try?
