Behold America by Sarah Churchwell. An enlightening and instructive wake up call.
“History rarely starts when we think it did, and it never seems to end when we think it should. Nor does it tend to say what we think it will. The phrases ‘American dream’ and ‘America first’ were born almost a century ago - and rapidly entangled over capitalism, democracy and race, the three fates always spinning America’s destiny.”
In her enlightening book Behold America, Sarah Churchwell looks into the history of these two phrases and explores how their evolution, both their myths and their truths, had shaped reality in ways that are not yet fully understood. She looks into how did people use these phrases in the past across the U.S., how they emerged, about the same time, a hundred years ago, in 1916, and how they both became part of the American political conversation in different ways, not as ideas but as catchphrases.
The way a phrase evolves and the chains of association that are formed intuitively or unconsciously as one idea, define the political and social realities. It is surprising and instructive to see how these associations explain the situation that the U.S. is now.
The American dream, says Sarah Churchwell, emerged, a hundred years ago, as a way to argue that rampant, unchecked capitalism and monopoly capitalism would destroy the American dream of equality, justice and democracy. Then they argued that too much private wealth could be a threat for the equal and democratic society that they would dream to build and that it would create opportunities only for the few not the many. In the first twenty years of its existence, the phrase ‘American dream’ was usually employed to describe a political ideal, not an economic one. Today the American dream has been interwoven with individual liberty and prosperity, generous enthusiasm and the pursue of wealth and success. The Great Gatsby, is a perfect example of this idea of the American dream. The story begins in the early 20s, a period of thriving economy and materialism, and Gatsby’s life is tightly connected to this idea of the American dream.
Trump may have embraced the slogan ‘America First’, but the phase is much older and its history much darker. Although most people associate it with Charles Lindbergh and the America First movement of 1940-41 to keep America out of the WWII, the phrase is actually much older than that. It was the campaign slogan of President Thomas Woodrow Wilson in the 1916, who used it in order to urge American to stay out of WWI. After the war, America First, became a slogan that symbolised isolationism and protectionism.
In the name of America First, nativists and ‘100% Americans’, who believed in the power of the Anglo-Saxon and Nordic races and considered the southern and eastern Europeans inferior, passed, in the 1920s, anti-immigration laws that established quotas of different ethnic communities. It is known as the National Origins Act. In January 2018, Trump asked participants in an Oval Office meeting why the United States should accept immigrants from “shithole countries.”
Los Angeles Times writes that according to people briefed on the meeting, Trump asked,
“What do we want Haitians here for? Why do we want all these people from Africa here? Why do we want all these people from shit hole countries?" The president added: "We should have people from places like Norway."
America First was a way to talk then as it is now, about isolationism, protectionism and white supremacy. “A provocative reminder,” writes Sarah Churchwell, “that troubling impulses may lurk beneath seemingly anodyne sloganeering and inspiring rhetoric.”
At the same time, America First became associated with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1920s the Klansmen carried America-First banners. On Monday 30 May 1927 during New York’s Memorial Day parades, protesters confronted Klan marchers. Seven men were arrested. Five “avowed Klansmen”. One arrested by mistake and immediately released; The seventh man was a 20-year-old German-American by the name of Fred Trump. He was also released. Few years later, Fred was a multi-millionaire property developer. He also had a son, his name is Donald Trump.
In order to fight the danger of resurgence of fascism, you need to know the history. Fascists are masters of political theatre, they feed on peoples’ grievances; they demonize groups of people, and they present themselves as national saviours. They seek to subvert and eliminate liberal institutions. With her book Behold America, Sarah Churchwell remind us of the danger that America is facing and presents arguments to fight back against authoritarianism and white nationalistic policies.