On being a believer
Gruesome Details
I saw Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (a movie for a time that maybe never existed) and discovered how deeply in the tank I was for Mattel. As billionaires destroy the country, I am discovering I am truly in the tank for the US as well. It is dismaying, as I am not blind to the nation’s faults.
But fascists are trying to destroy its strengths.
US citizens hate it when people outside the US insult us or even speak of us. But the stereotypes they have collated and exposed are all true. We’re stupid (look what we’ve done). We’re loud (see our works). We’re jingoistic in a way that makes no sense as our nation-state does not provide us healthcare.
But we’re also friendly (we can’t stop smiling!) and optimistic (we went to the moon that time). To quote Cher from Clueless, “It doesn’t say RSVP on the Statue of Liberty.” Our friendliness and sunny idealism are also elements of our national character.
As we continue into the dark days and bright mornings of whatever follows today, it seems important to note this. Fascism is about breaking us up into cultural segments, dividing us so we attack one another instead of the power structures that bind us. And, given the tumult and immiseration of my entire adult life, it can feel hard to find the reason to continue this project, to try to bring forth this idea (the US of A) that was, in almost all ways, doomed from the start.
But we’re all here, on this exquisitely beautiful land, so we might as well figure it out.
No matter when you got to the United States—yesterday, today, or tomorrow—you have come to this place because you want its optimism, its friendliness, its hope. “America” as a concept is about hope (even the language hopes you forget about South and North Americas). Seeing random people stand up and say “this shit sucks” brings me hope. Hope that they, too, are in the tank enough for the US of A to not let people rip all the copper out of the walls and all of our neighbors out of our arms.
America is stupid and loud and the Florida of the world. But it is also friendly and pretty and where you might like to take a vacation, if it isn’t being ruled by people who want to kidnap you at the border.
It’s frustrating, to believe more firmly in the idea of the United States than people who drape themselves in the flag. It is annoying to have to defend a project of which I am highly suspicious. (Any power, not just absolute, corrupts and I think the government should be run like jury duty with people drafted for six-month stints.)
But here we are.
The United States of America is an idea and a promise. And I’ve promised myself tomorrow the country can be better than it is today. It can be friendlier, more optimistic, and more hopeful. I must believe other people are making a similar pledge.
JD fucking Vance, at the very least, shouldn’t get to decide what being American means. He doesn’t even understand doughnuts which is a word that Washington Irving (one of the great Americans) brought us!
Anyway, to finish this off, here’s a list of great American things:
chocolate chip cookies
modern celebrations of Christmas and Halloween
jazz!!
modern bras
the Chemex coffee maker (you thought it was European! it isn’t! it just looks like it!)
the ballpoint pen
house music
pro wrestling
the first modern public library supported by taxes!!!