We've seen the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid/ Shooter's Party spend the last 40 years or more finding ways to cobble together an electoral majority by playing divisive racial, social, religious, economic, nativist and "patriotism" cards. In a remarkable display of projection, that same group of cynical nihilists is now claiming Democrats -- and specifically the President -- is doing what has been their life's work: "dividing America."
Most recently, easily- frazzled empty suit Sen. Marco "Glug Glug" Rubio (R-Mattel) has been leveling that charge (“[He] is undertaking a systematic effort to change this country, to make America more like the rest of the world.”). In today's read (please go to the link for the entire article), Fareed Zakaria explores that Republican dog whistle and suggests who really is guilty of that charge:
What, then, made America truly exceptional, from the start? It was a country founded not on race, ethnicity or religion but on ideas. And, crucially, those ideas were open to all. This openness to people, ideas, cultures and religions resulted in the creation of a new person — the American. The great historian Gordon Wood explains his view of American exceptionalism: “In an important sense, we have never been a nation in any traditional meaning of the term. . . . We Americans do not have a nationality the way other peoples do . . . which of course is why we can absorb immigrants more easily than they can.”
Other countries have small states and low taxes, and there are many liberal democracies, even republics. But no other country from the outset believed in the idea of openness and the mixture of people. The United States is a nation founded on diversity — of race, religion, national origin.
There are efforts to change America. There are plans to introduce religious and ethnic tests to bar immigrants and even visitors, or to track immigrants and visitors once they arrive. There have been calls to deport people, even American citizens. There are proposals to monitor houses of worship.
These ideas would fundamentally change America, tearing at its founding DNA. It would make it much more like the rest of the world, becoming one more nation in which certain ethnic groups and religions were privileged and others were outsiders, a country in which diversity was a threat to national character and unity rather than a strength.
One of the most important issues to be fought out in this election is whose vision of America do we want to prevail: the ugly, reactionary nativism of the Republicans or the inclusive, tolerant vision of the Democrats. As Zakaria rightly points out, if the former were to prevail, it would change the "exceptionalism" of America, but in a very dark way that would betray the genius that is the very essence of this country.And who is it proposing these changes? The last time I checked, it was not Barack Obama.
