As if we were all in the evangelical equivalent of the film Groundhog Day, America awakens in the Garden of Eden every morning. There’s always a talking snake offering us poisonous fruit. And our current snake — President Donald Trump — presents fruit infused with two concepts: Patriotism and communism.
Trump pushes “patriotism” as a positive trope and “communism” as a negative trope. Patriotism is for feeling good, communism is for experiencing fear. Within this simple MAGA binary, Republicans are the patriots and Democrats are the communists.
Our talking snake is not subtle. He has digital trading cards of himself as Captain America and as Superman. He has been photographed hugging the American flag in an erotic embrace. Trump sells patriotism as if it were a simple commodity.
Patriotism: The American God term
In The Ethics of Rhetoric, Richard Weaver dubs patriotism the “penultimate God term.” Trump has put God in subjection to patriotism. And evangelicals have responded by adding patriotism to the list of Christian virtues.
It’s as if I Corinthians 13:13 now reads, “But now abide faith, hope, love and patriotism; but the greatest of these is patriotism.”
“It is a fake patriotism without any true patriotic ideals.”
The problem, of course, is Trump defining patriotism in superficial, performative ways according to his own reading. He makes patriotism flag-waving, Bible-thumping and fireworks. It is a fake patriotism without any true patriotic ideals.
Trump uses what rhetorical scholars call “strategic misnaming” of terms. Illegal acts of injustice, murders by ICE agents and civil rights violations are in keeping with Trump’s codifying ruthless and systematic practices violating human rights. Yet he paints all his cruel actors with layers of red, white and blue.
MAGA defines patriotism as total fealty to Trump regardless of how atrocious his rhetoric and deeds become. The formula becomes: Loyalty to Trump equals patriotism; dissent from Trump means being unpatriotic.
Instead of promised greatness, Trump has MAGA drinking from the chalice of the sorrows of empire. With his imperial bluster has come war culture, hypermasculinity and the normalization of white supremacy. Economic hegemony — with America’s billionaires as our version of Putin’s oligarchs — and aggressive militarism are the primary markers of this American empire.
Trump isn’t making America great. He is unleashing the four horsemen of the apocalypse (pestilence, war, famine and death). His policies open the door to a global warming he denies, a nuclear winter, a war never ending, economic collapse and pandemics.
Trump’s performative patriotism hides a pattern of criminality under the flag. He and his gang are regularly committing crimes against humanity: corrupt financial deals, abusing the criminal justice system in the form of frivolous lawsuits and refusal to abide by court decisions, violence committed by ICE agents against a hardworking immigrant population.
Abraham Joshua Heschel said the primary characteristic of an empire in decline is its “indifference to criminality.” And “wickedness in high places” has come to define our current political malaise.
“True patriots never attempt to take advantage of other nations or of our own.”
Performative patriotism beats drums, waves the flag and sings “God Bless America.” Persuasive patriotism upholds democracy not only with pride but with shame for our nation’s “flaws.” Patriotism dissents rather than bowing the knee to authoritarianism. True patriots never attempt to take advantage of other nations or of our own.
As Sheldon Wolin, in Democracy Incorporated, insists, democracy is “first and foremost about equality” upheld by “social cooperation.” True patriots love their country, but their love doesn’t end at the border. They are not interested in world domination but in how America can be what President Franklin Roosevelt called “good neighbors.”
Communism: The American devil term
Weaver also identifies some terms as “devil” terms. The most powerful term in this category is communism. Trump has resurrected the term in what looks like a new outbreak of the Red Scare.
During a 30-minute speech on July 3 against the backdrop of the rock-hewn sculptures of four great presidents, he mentioned “communism” or “communist” at least 14 times. “Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty,” Trump claimed. “It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor or even 9/11.”
The next day, at a Fourth of July celebration on the National Mall, the president again devoted considerable time to warning about the specter of communism, vowing before a crowd of cheering supporters that “America will never be a communist country.”
“The president attempts to merge communism with immigrants and Democrats.”
In Trump’s mind, there is “now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success.” The president attempts to merge communism with immigrants and Democrats.
This communist fixation is a leftover piece of poison fruit from the Christian fundamentalist era. Anticommunism has twinned with Christian fundamentalism for more than a century.
For example, evangelist Billy Sunday railed against communists in a decades-long crusade. And J. Frank Norris, former pastor of First Baptist Church in Fort Worth, spent his career fighting theological modernists, Catholics and communists.
Trump’s anticommunist screeds are cut from this evangelical cloth. In the MAGA toolbox, the Bible, the faith, the flag, patriotism and country are all one fabric.
The MAGA choir
When Trump screams, “The communists are coming.” MAGA has no choice but to sing along:
- “This is not your granddaddy’s Democrat Party,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “These are communists.”
- “The Bolshevik takeover of the Democratic Party is in full swing, and communism is on the ballot this November,” Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House majority leader, said.
- “It’s communism, socialism, those are deviations of Marxism,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News.
- “Socialists are coming for your family, safety and freedom,” said Katie Britt of Alabama.
- “There are two things you should never cry over: 1.) Spilled milk. 2.) Dead commies,” said the evangelical leader William Wolfe.
As an elementary school student, I participated in drills designed to frighten us of the communist Soviets dropping nuclear bombs on America. Teachers instructed us to seek shelter under our wooden desks.
I’m too old now to hide under anything. So I sit at my desk and pound out words of lament. I scream, protest, cajole and attempt to persuade Americans not to eat poison apples. And just maybe this production of the Red Scare won’t be as successful.
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.