The Fourth of July is the perfect time to talk about statues, the absolute madness and hypocrisy of MAGA and Trumpism, and how American history has been weaponized into mythological propaganda.

I didn't understand this until I wrote AMERICAN RULE.

1/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/611439/american-rule-by-jared-yates-sexton/

We need to start with Mount Rushmore, which is just a terrible monument that stands, in its existence, as a supposed symbol of American presidential greatness.

But let's talk about why it's such a terrible representation of history and why it's a symbol of ignorance.

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Mount Rushmore itself is just a static memorial, four heads, four representations of "great" presidents.

They're immortal because they're immortal. No context, no explanation, just four immortalized gods we should all aspire and worship without question.

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This is the nature of memorials. They are representations of ideal people and ideal moments that are set in stone for people who came before us.

The simple existence of a monument means that somebody at some time with power has made a decision to immortalize this person.

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But you cannot understand America today or the America of the future without understanding the America of the past.

Memorials and statues drain away context, hide that presidents were slave owners, that presidents were rabid white supremacists, that presidents were faulty.

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What ends up happening, with statues and memorials and paintings and even curricula in public schools, is that complex, faulty people are turned into religious idols.

That's the crux. American history has been made into a religious myth all of its own where we worship men.

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I've talked about this in the past. We've created a society where we hold George Washington up as a Christian God and Abraham Lincoln as a Christ figure who saved the nation and patriotism as the holy spirit.

This is why we're watching the Cult of Trump destroy the nation.

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The United States of America, for generations now, has taken an aggressive stance with its history and its actions by scrubbing clean its worst moments and its nuances and presenting itself as a country chosen and designed by god.

It's a cult. A literal, actual cult.

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Donald Trump's total incompetence and obvious buffoonery has made this more apparent than ever to people who, until recently, were under the spell of the American cult.

His personal disgrace has broken people out of this mythical American reality. That's what you're feeling.

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In the past, a president going to Mt Rushmore with a band and fireworks would've seem quaint and totally normal.

But Trump going pulls the curtain back and reveals the ugly truth that it's a display of mythology and oppression.

He's the Rosetta Stone of American myth.

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We have been, for generations, caught in a cult that worships America like a religion instead of members of a nation that has faults.

We've participated in ritual worship, ritual sacrament, all of it, with the belief that we were chosen by god for greater things.

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These statues and memorials, they're secular saints. We've held them up as perfect lest we see the fallible nature of America and the fallible nature within ourselves.

Again, Trump is making this lunacy obvious and undeniable. Not to mention the pandemic.

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The reason America more or less conquered the world was because of our mythologized story.

Empires grow when they convince others to believe in their ordained nature and goodness and then conquer everyone else.

This is the truth, as disturbing as it is.

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Trump and the MAGA crowd hold onto statues for dear life because those ornamental structures are religious idols of a cultish faith of America.

As they crumble, they know the cult worship of America is in danger, and all Trump and the GOP have is the American mythology.

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The Fourth of July is a perfect day to sit with all this, to really examine what America is, what we should celebrate, and what we should reckon with.

We can find America's good without worshiping it mindlessly and dangerously.

We have to work harder to find truth.

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Many Americans are waking up from this false history, this cult mythology, they're opening their eyes and realizing the USA has been problematic in so many different ways, that our story is only weaponized mythology.

It's a hard, tiring thing, but absolutely necessary.

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Spend some time thinking about the Americans you admire and think of as heroes. Chances are, you admire them because they worked and sacrificed to make America better than what it was before them.

Throw away these idols. Reject the mythology. Seek out truth.

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Worshiping America and denying its real, actual history only leads to fascism. We've seen it time and time and time again.

It empowers genocide. It forgives slavery. It gives free rein to authoritarians like Trump.

Reject this perverse nationalist cult and find truth.

18/18

PS/ In case this thread doesn't make it obvious, the Fourth of July is the American religion's Christmas. It is a secular, nationalist feast.

Trump's Rushmore stunt was like a Christmas Eve spectacular.

This isn't metaphorical language. It's an actual cult.

Cult.