A nation? Under God?
The nation and God. God and the nation. The 250 years of history of the United States are characterized by both concepts, sometimes complementary, sometimes contradictory.
In 1776, the thirteen colonies that signed the declaration of independence had already been at war with the British Empire for a year and did not have very clear ideas about their own future. There were only two basic points of consensus: they demanded their own sovereignty (together or separately; there was no agreement on this) and they rejected tyranny, that is, the power of a single man.
Simplifying it greatly, the declaration of independence is inspired by the spirit of the first settlers, who had abandoned Europe in search of religious freedom, and in the southern mysticism proper to Virginia. Hence the famous second paragraph, in which God is placed as the sponsor of certain “inalienable rights”. In this text, God appears four times, as “creator”, as “supreme judge of the world” or as “divine providence”.
The Constitution, applied since 1789 (the year of the French Revolution), is a colder and more rational artifact, linked to the Northern pragmatism of Boston and, in general, of New England. It has a federalist articulation that is antipathetic to the South, more inclined to confederation, which plants the seed of the future civil war (1861-1865). And, very importantly: the Constitution does not invoke God nor does it include the word "democracy. The objective is to establish a republic governed by three independent powers (executive, legislative, and judicial), which, in theory, would guarantee religious tolerance and make a despotic regime impossible. Over the years, reality took care of complicating everything.
“Of course. Our entire national history has been a history of expansion,” President Theodore Roosevelt said in 1899. From the purchase of Louisiana from France (1803), the conquest of part of Mexico (1848), and the purchase of Alaska from Russia (1867), the United States has not stopped growing. Willingly or by force. It displaced or annihilated native populations, occupied since 1898 the former Spanish colonies of Cuba and the Philippines, and in the 20th century it became a world power. There was never any doubt about “manifest destiny.” George Washington, the first president, defined the nascent republic as “an empire in its infancy.”And this is the problem: an empire is not run like a republic. Time and again, the president has seen his powers increased to lead an international empire in almost constant war. It was not much different from what happened with the Roman Republic, Julius Caesar, and the transformation into an empire.
Until relatively recently, the forms and a relative balance of internal power were maintained. After the crisis of confidence of the 60s and 70s (racial riots, Vietnam, Watergate, occupation of the embassy in Tehran), Ronald Reagan articulated a new imperial vision, which was reinforced in 1989 with the victory of the Cold War against the Soviet Union, culminating in 2001. The September 11 attacks allowed George W. Bush to accumulate immense power to declare a "war on terror" without deadlines, without geographical limits, and with no other objective than to "defeat evil." These precedents help to better understand the naturalness with which Donald Trump proposes to buy or conquer Greenland, absorb Canada, or establish new protectorates, such as Venezuela.
Divine Alliance
Now we must concern ourselves with God. Until 1954, in schools the “oath of allegiance” to the flag, the Republic, the indivisible nation, freedom, and justice was recited daily. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a president who saw the Cold War as a conflict between religion and communist atheism, ordered that year that the words "}under God. “A nation under God”. Today, all schoolchildren recite this phrase.
Ronald Reagan understood the capacity of religion to capture votes and transform the country in a conservative sense. His alliance with the "televangelists" during the 80s has endured over time and, little by little, Protestant churches and the Republican Party have formed a solid axis. Let's remember that Protestant churches in the United States have a religious purpose and a commercial purpose. A Catholic priest does not become a millionaire, no matter how many faithful attend his ceremonies. A priest earns a salary. A Pentecostal or Baptist pastor (to give two examples among the many booming currents) with his own television program and millions of followers on social media can become a multimillionaire thanks to donations. A successful televangelist travels by private jet. Logically, this pastor will preach that God is with capitalism and tax cuts for the rich.
Why does a figure as distant from religion and good works as Donald Trump receive so many blessings from Protestant pastors? Because their alliance is political and alien to divine considerations. In the ultraconservative Tea Party movement (2009), the alliance of religious people, libertarians, racists, xenophobes, millionaires, and authoritarian technomagnates crystallized.facing a common enemy that represented everything they rejected: Barack Obama.Trump is a product of the Tea Party. His movement, the famous "Make America Great Again" (MAGA), is not a majority, not by a long shot. Neither is the new religious fanaticism a majority. But both phenomena have very active, noisy, and, when necessary, violent followers (remember the assault on the Capitol).
After two and a half centuries, the idea of nationhood falters in the face of imperial evidence, and religious tolerance loses ground to the fanaticism of Protestant sects. The old conflict endures.