The Four Pillars of Nationalism

This is from an e-mail I wrote to a friend. Tomorrow is Beck's 8/28 rally and I want you all to be prepared with a small bit of background before I lay into the idea of a Personality Cult.

Tea Partiers may use weasel words like "Muslim" or "illegal immigrants" but that's just to avoid saying "Arab" and "Hispanic". If you ask a Tea Partier to draw a picture of a Muslim, they're not going to draw Ethnic Chinese Muslims (the Hui) and if you ask them to draw a picture of an "illegal" they're not going to draw Hollanders who overstay their work visas. To the tea party, it is the WORST INSULT to be labeled a racist, so they come up with creative Politically Correct replacement words.

Interestingly, in the 1960's when white people didn't want to seem racist they would make segregation arguments based on taxes. Poor people (Read: Blacks) pay less in taxes, therefore don't deserve the same level of social services. Sounding familiar? Now that no egos are involved, we can look back and declare all segregation to be racist, but at the time white people often wanted to avoid the "racist" title.

It's about fear of the Other, and it's also fear about jobs. Stupid, right? Economic crisis is the PERFECT time for a nationalist movement. Who "deserves" jobs, who doesn't. It's not a coincidence that Europe exploded in ethnic violence after the fall of the soviet union. People were literally trying to re-form nations as well as survive economic devastation. But who deserves a job? Well, first, we have to look at who is "us" and who is "them". This is a long process and will last throughout the movement. What we mean by this question is "who is most like ME?" but more on that later. The easiest way to group people is based on skin color. Like it or not, we're hard-wired for picking out one race versus another. People who claim to be color blind are full of shit. Religion is also a good one, and the two, historically, are connected. Back in the day before airplanes, your place of birth had as much influence on the shape of your nose as it did on which gods you worshiped. Ethnicity and religion often go hand in hand, but when they don't we can sort accordingly. Black and christian? Good. Black and Muslim? GTFO.

This is where the Nation comes in. To the nationalist, the nation you belong to is just as important as the color of your skin. More so. (Before nation-states we had "tribalism" but it's all part of the same pattern. It's a very Euro-centric study, but applies everywhere) Nationalism is the belief that the state is above everything else. It's that simple. Everything must be done in the service of the state; your life, your religion, your children, history, god, everything is compelled to serve of the state. There's a quote from a pope during world war two: "Nationalism is the pagan worship of the state" but that's not far enough. Think of a cult or an all-consuming abusive relationship. But... the Tea party is not at that level. It's Nationalism-lite.

So we have the four pillars of the nationalist movement, the nation (America), the skin color (white), the religion (Christian), and the language (English). Slowly, and I mean REALLY slowly, each one will start to equal the other three. If you're Christian, you should be an English-speaking White American. If you're White, you should be a English-speaking Christian American. If you're American, you should be a English-speaking White Christian. If you speak English, ... yeah. Now, that idea alone is scary as hell, but it gets worse. Before you know it, "Christian" isn't enough. You have to be protestant. "White" isn't enough, you have to be Germanic. "American" isn't enough, your family has to stretch back to the FOUNDING FATHERS. Etc.

Godwin moment: Language was a huge part of Germany's justification for invading Poland. The Polish spoke German too, and therefore must be occupying inherently German land. Also Poland was threatening Germany and Germany needed to protect itself.

I think you can see where this is going. The Muslims are non-white and non-christian, and therefore not proper Americans with the same rights (freedom of worship, mostly). The Mexicans are non-white, non-Americans and therefore don't deserve the same rights as real Americans. Those who closely fit the criteria get to be part of "us" and those who don't... well, they need to stay in line. They're here because we allow them to be here, after all. We "deserve" the jobs, the full benefits of being an American, the protection of the state, the medical care, to be patrons of privately owned business and, soon, the citizenship. Of course, past that we have "half-citizens" and slowly, slowly, half-humans... then, well, horribleness.

I don't believe the tea party will get there.

Let me say that again.

The Tea Party will not get genocidal.

But I do believe we will see serious violence against "the Other" in the next two years. It will probably be done in the name of "self-defense." 1960's race-riots level? Hard to say. But possibly.

Edit: I will continue to update this post with relevant links as I find them.
Also some spelling fixed by Robin.