The Church of Zealous Americanism

Egyptian icon of Akhenaten as priest of the sun god

I had an interesting discussion recently with a pastor, who also teaches comparative religion as a sideline. Someone made a flippant comment about the ways recent politics have turned into cults of personality. As we watch, many American conservatives openly refuse to believe reported election outcomes unless they support the incumbent. Meanwhile, I personally watched friends walk away from the Democratic Party because it wouldn’t provide their perfect candidate.

This principle, that the candidate is, or anyway should be, a perfect individual embodying the people’s values, perhaps makes sense, in scale. We want elected officials, and the Executive in particular, to take point in transforming our moral precepts into law. However, when the individual becomes so important that we’ll relinquish democracy to support the individual, this becomes less like politics, taking on trappings of religion, even occult.

My pastor friend says this isn’t as unprecedented as Americans might perceive it. She cites ancient societies, like pharaonic Egypt, which believed their kings were literal gods in human flesh. In medieval times, God or the gods remained more distant from government, but kings still believed they received their authority from God. When (and if) Prince Charles eventually inherits the British throne, he’ll receive the crown from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Meanwhile, contemporary one-party states create state personality cults around their Dear Leaders. Many scholars have spilled much ink over the ways North Korea’s government has created religious devotion to the Kim dynasty. Even when governments are nominally altogether secular, they often engage in religious posturing. The Soviet Union engaged in organized iconoclasty which distinctly resembled that of the German Peasants’ War of 1524.

So on one level, the cult of personality which drives much American politics today isn’t unprecedented. But it feels icky in a society which is officially secular. On paper, American political authority derives from the people, and the government exists to enact (within limits) the people’s will. Absolute, and frequently violent, dedication to an individual, seems more consistent with Charles Manson or David Koresh than a term-limited president.

Nevertheless, as I’ve written before, American presidential politics since 2000 has been, explicitly or implicitly, a contest between duelling messiahs. Americans believe a President from their political party will save America from whatever moral depredations the previous President inflicted upon us. Electing the correct president will, through means vague and frequently undescribed, make us good. The definition of goodness is, unfortunately, not fixed.

Try not to cringe

Thinking about it, I realized this isn’t innovative. The White-washed version of American history I received in public school frequently had a religious foundation. The First Thanksgiving roughly corresponds with “In the Beginning,” with the Constitutional Convention of 1789 matching Moses bringing the Tablets down Mount Sinai. Waiting for the messianic presidency is merely a culmination of prophecy taught in American secular religion.

Nor is this religion entirely unfair. Any government needs underlying principles; otherwise it becomes a tool for powerful people to enrich themselves at others’ expense—as we’ve seen whenever we’ve believed contingencies required us to pause certain principles. Any government, even a democratically elected one, cannot practice justice, without some prior agreement of what justice actually is.

Reverend Jim Wallis, who criticizes American politics from the Christian Left, frequently cites Proverbs 29:18—“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Reverend Wallis believes America, and any nation really, needs unifying national moral vision, in order to remain together. That vision needn’t necessarily be religious, though it often has religious origins. (Professor Kevin M. Kruse would argue, further, that this origin is more PR than religion anyway.)

Therefore, presidential elections become a referendum on national morals. Which party’s values better represent America overall? The President doesn’t just enforce legislation and command the military; he becomes invested with our moral aspirations. When the President’s morality strays, from Clinton lying about getting a BJ, to Trump imprisoning children in a disused Walmart, these actions aren’t personal, they’re a moral judgement upon the nation.

I’ve written before that a religion requires certain traits. Capital-T Truth must exist, and that Truth must be revealed by a prophet or messiah who is, also, conveniently dead and therefore immune from cross-examination. But I’ll add another stipulation: a religion needs a future. We must expect the Truth will return, whether to judge us in the afterlife or to restore justice in this world. But it must never arrive.

Thus, we’re witnessing America transition to another temporary messiah. We’ll adjust our morals appropriately, fight over where our future lies, and do it all again.