Election Day Destiny Manifesting
Election Day Destiny Manifesting
American arrogance truly is exceptional
Election day is finally here. I feel the tension. It is nerve-jangling because the Republican party has gone nuts and sold out to far-right zealots who blatantly deny fact even when it’s on video right in front of their eyes. On top of that, our democratic processes and institutions are cracked and everything feels fragile and uncertain.
It is definitely an unsettled and unsettling time. However, when I take a bigger picture view, I think a lot of this upheaval was inevitable and possibly even destiny. The flat truth is the US is a nation built on a foundation of genocide, slavery and the relegation of women to positions of servitude. It was founded by people guided by a deluded arrogance that God had given them some special right to torture, kill and colonize in the name of Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny was a nineteenth century set of cultural beliefs that held that the American people and their institutions had special virtues, the mission of the United States was to colonize and remake the West, and Americans were imbued by God with an irresistible destiny to accomplish that duty. The major ideas of manifest destiny can be traced to the original ideology of the 15th-Century decree of the Doctrine of Christian Discover which provided the Catholic church a way of distinguishing between Christians and non-Christians and gave European colonizers a self-proclaimed legal right to roll over indigenous peoples and take their lands in the name of “discovery.”
Somewhere in the pursuit of this “God-given” destiny, the concept of American exceptionalism emerged and was used to justify the insertion of American-style democracy and, of course, Capitalism, to cultures across the globe. It was a to the victor goes the spoils way of seizing resources.
Ours is a violent history, based on a concocted concept of God and a deluded arrogance that one possessed special virtue simply by being a white American male. That is just historical fact.
As the nation matured, cultural norms shifted and women and people of color gained freedoms and rights and democracy did play out in important ways in the “American experiment.” However, violence, delusion, and self-proclaimed exceptionalism are in our cultural DNA and we will not fully heal or evolve until they are brought fully into the light and frankly addressed. I think that is partly what is happening right now in this challenging time. Some of the fundamental flaws in American culture and generational belief systems are rearing up in ugly ways and wiping arrogant smiles right off a lot of faces. Given our founding this is probably destiny manifesting. May we gain wisdom and maturity as we face hard truths.
I so hope this election does not usher in more truth-denying, climate-denying, women-subjugating right-wingers but either way, America is in for a bumpy ride. My prayer is that the jolts will propel us in the direction of a more truly democratic, just, and honest society. It is time to inject some new sequences into our cultural DNA.
#elections #makeamericagreatagain #destiny #democracy