E Pluribus Unum: What Is Our New American Narrative?
On the morning of November 9, 2016, I woke up with a scratchy throat and a cough. I had gone to bed crying the night before. I cried while I watched Hillary give her concession speech. I cried for the loss of my political voice; the loss of my idealized understanding of America; and the potential profound loss of the progress I thought we had made, however haltingly it marched. By the end of the day, I had lost my voice and could barely speak. Real life magical realism.
My throat felt better after five days, but today, I am still trying to find my voice in this new, foreign place I call home, at times feeling like an ex-pat in the country of my birth.
Over the past few months, my thoughts have circled the drain around one question: What is our binding American narrative today?
For months now, pundits, scholars, journalists, bloggers, and everyday thinkers have discussed how divided we are as a nation and where those fault lines lie. Race. Gender. Religion. Income. Class. Language. Education. Geography. With so much to drive us apart, what holds us together in the America of 2017?
A friend answered it is the Bill of Rights that binds us. Yet the conflicting views of what free speech or freedom of religion means are ever more entrenched. The oppositional interpretation of the 2nd amendment, for example, is one of the dividing issues of our day. Another told me it was the American dream, the promise that hard work is the midwife of inevitable progress, upward mobility and financial stability. However, there is an increasing amount of data that debunks this central myth about American life today. A July, 2016 article in The Atlantic, reporting on a paper published by two University of Massachusetts economists, is titled “Poor at 20, Poor for Life.” The paper concludes, based on Census Bureau data spanning from 1981 to 2008 that where you start is where you end up.
If we, as a nation of immigrants, do not by definition have a shared history, a common religion, widely recognized and understood cultural touch points or even, according to some, a common language, what is the foundation on which we all stand to navigate our differences and work through the enormous problems we face in this moment? In a column for the New York Times, Charles M. Blow wrote, “ We are facing the potential abrogation of fundamental American ideals.” In a time when almost half of the country voted for a nativist, racist and misogynist demagogue, and the other half framed him as such, what are these “American ideals”?
As human beings we understand the world through narrative. A nation’s narrative is meant to bind its citizenry in a commonality and can encompass everything from food, language, heritage, shared struggles and shared victories. The story Americans tell of America has changed over the course of this nation’s short history, reflecting contemporary sentiments and issues.
The story of the 17th century is framed as the Pilgrims’ freedom from religious persecution. In the 18th century the narrative evolved into colonists seeking freedom from the English on the basis of “no taxation without representation” and that “All men are created equal…” The 19th century saw the birth of Manifest Destiny from the belief that Americans and their institutions held virtues that justified expansion. At the same time, the country suffered the Civil War, the first spin-off from the central narrative. In the World Wars of the 20th century, Americans realized their leadership role on a global scale, and with Communism, had a common enemy. America emerged into its greatest role, Defender of Democracy.
Yet throughout the centuries, America’s central stories have been the stories of white, Christian men told by white, Christian men. Freedom from persecution did not apply to Native Americans. Women and slaves were not equal. The privilege of democracy, the right to vote to elect a representative government, was withheld from many for most of this country’s history. For too long the binding story of this country has been based on the notion of a zero sum game. The rules were made by white men; the benefits conferred upon white men; and the losses heaped on women, blacks, Latinos, Jews and Native Americans. White men in America are the original practitioners of identity politics, and the results of the 2016 election are proof of that.
Which brings us to today. In 21st century America the winners and losers of this game are about to meet on the social ladder. Irreversible demographic shifts ensure it. By 2050, America will no longer have a white majority. Women outpace men in college enrollment. America twice elected a black man president; marriage equality is a reality; a Pew study shows only 28% of millenials attend weekly services. And precisely in this moment, we are bombarded with articles and news reports from every corner of the political spectrum that liberals should abandon identity politics and focus on a broader, policy based coalition.
Just when the center of identity politics begins to shift away from the historical majoritarian group -white men, they proclaim it an ineffective strategy. The election of Hillary Clinton to the presidency and its attendant policies would not have excluded white, Christian men. But the election of Donald Trump includes no one else. It’s not the identity politics of minority groups, who need to ban together to amplify their voices, that needs to end. It’s this notion that progress and its accompanying growth are zero sum games.
Yes, the cacophony of voices on the left can at times be dizzying thereby obscuring and confusing the goals. However, advocating for immigrants is not mutually exclusive from demanding a woman’s right to choose. Wanting to ensure that healthcare is a right does not bump environmental protections off of the agenda. And Black Lives Matter doesn’t mean white lives don’t. If including the concerns of immigrants, women, blacks, LGBTQ, the uninsured, the underpaid, refugees, and the 99% isn’t, as David Brooks criticized in a recent column for the New York Times “a modern, forward-looking patriotism based on pluralism, dynamism, growth, racial and gender equality and global engagement,” then what is?
We need a binding narrative whose authorship is broader than what it has been for two and half centuries. But to make political gains and sustain change, that narrative needs to be based on an alternative paradigm where one group’s gains aren’t framed as another’s losses. Gay marriage doesn’t have to be seen as diminishing the faith of heterosexual Christians but rather as strengthening the country’s social fabric by supporting nuclear families, the long held bedrock of community. Allowing a program like DACA to continue doesn’t take funds away from working class whites but results in young adults better prepared to support themselves and not be a drain on taxpayer dollars. A woman’s right to choose hasn’t undermined Christian values for those who live them but has allowed women to have careers and contribute to household income in a time when two earners are necessary for most families.
The progressive agenda is marching toward a robust, 21st century interpretation of E Pluribus Unum, one of the foundational myths of this nation. Abandoning identity politics to ensure that Trump voters do not feel neglected would be tantamount to erasing the gains we have made since the New Deal. Instead, embracing a new narrative that does not have the parameters of a zero sum game will ensure that this country’s wealth and freedoms are shared by all equitably.