Trump has called for his followers to be willing to lay down their lives to save America from . . . critical race theory.
Getting Critical Race Theory out of our schools is not just a matter of values. It is also a matter of national survival. We have no choice. The fate of any nation ultimately depends upon the willingness of its citizens to lay down—and they must do this—lay down their very lives to defend their country. If we allow the Marxists and communists and socialists to teach our children to hate America, there will be no one left to defend our flag or to protect our great country or its freedoms.
Trump spoke these remarks this past Saturday in Florence, South Carolina. Jesse Dollemore at Dollemore Daily has the clip (remarks begin at 5:19):
This is clearly code. He may as well have said the fourteen words. I think it’s only a matter of time.
But in the meantime, Trump must use code, in order for his words to find its way into avenues of media propagation and the veins of viewers who self-identify first and foremost as White, people second.
Trump’s call to self-sacrifice in the context of CRT is analogous to Putin’s attempt to stage his originally planned pretext into Ukraine. That is, Trump is casting a chimera as an actual threat, and his listeners are as rapt as kids around a campfire afraid of a bogey, the oldest bogey in the American repertoire.
He is dovetailing the call by Madison Cawthorn for a holy war.
I feel a spiritual battle going on, on Capitol Hill. The only way that we take our country back is when strong, God-fearing patriots decide it is time for us to stand up and say “no” to your tyranny. Now is a time for our pastors and our congregations, like this one here, like many that you represent, it’s time for us to stand up and declare boldly that as men and women of faith, we have a duty to stand against tyranny. We have a duty to be civically involved. We have a duty to save this country for the next generation. Look at the Old Testament. Look at David, look at Daniel, look at Esther. Look at all these people who influenced the governments of their day to uphold Christian principles.
Cawthorn, who recently called Ukrainian President Zelenskyy “incredibly evil,” not so subtly links calls to the warrior class of the Old Testament to a battle cry for today’s America. This is a clear call and reference to the white supremacists’ wet dream of RaHoWa. Dominionists, too, place faith in this concept. Cawthorn’s message, directed to fundamentalists, means to have them embrace the tenets of fascism.
American fascism is on the rise, and the would-be warriors are being indoctrinated and radicalized just as any fanatic. In “Religious Violence, Terrorism, and Peace” (from Handbook of the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality [2005], p. 536, emphasis mine), Israela Silberman explains that
An interesting example for a religious value that might facilitate violence would be “selflessness.” This value means nullification in front of God and a focus on religious goals and objectives rather than on the self[.] Under certain circumstances it can guide people to sacrifice other needs and even their lives in religious wars or in acts of homicide (suicide) bombings. Under other circumstances it can facilitate selfless acts of love and compassion. The same can be said about the value of “self-sacrifice.”
Trump and his minions mean to amass this zealous army. All that’s left is the military arm.
