When you’re raised in an authoritarian Christian community you can never quite comfortably fit into, you learn early on about the ambiguity of language. Words like “love,” for example, mean very different things to a person who respects others’ bodily autonomy and a person who associates loving their children with subjecting them to corporal punishment in order to break their will. For Jesus, of course.
Words like “unity,” “freedom,” and “political” mean very different things to different kinds of people too. This is not my original insight, but it’s particularly relevant in the United States today.
This issue has been on my mind since I got a press release inviting me to set up an interview with Lee Greenwood ahead of Donald Trump’s second inauguration, which featured the 82-year-old country star singing his kitschy hit “God Bless the USA”—released in 1984 and now a staple at Trump rallies and similarly tacky events. To mark the occasion, Greenwood has also released an inauguration edition of his trashy Trump-endorsed “God Bless the USA” Bible, because of course he has.
When that information came across my computer screen, I began a probably ill-advised journey down the rabbit hole of Greenwood and “God Bless the USA” facts with the goal of understanding the song’s place in the history of late twentieth- and early twenty-first century Americana. Among other things, I learned that Greenwood has always asserted that the song, which proclaims “I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free,” is “apolitical” and belongs to all Americans. At the same time, “God Bless the USA” has only been used at national-level partisan events by Republicans since the Reagan era in which it was born.
If you sense a certain tension between those two facts, you’re not alone. The dissonance got me thinking about what terms like “apolitical” and “American” actually mean to Greenwood. It’s easy enough to guess, but it’s still best to get it straight from the horse’s mouth; i.e., an interview with Greenwood conducted by Astead W. Herndon for The New York Times during last year’s Republican National Convention. On an episode of “The Run-Up,” the Times’ election podcast, Herndon naively asks Greenwood, “How did a song about togetherness and the diversity of the country become tied to a party and a candidate that’s often represented division and chaos?”
I would dispute the premise that “God Bless the USA” was ever in any way about “diversity.” I mean, that’s a lot to read into fleeting boilerplate references to Detroit, Houston, New York, and LA, which are the only words in the song one could possibly build a case for “diversity” from—unless you want to argue it’s implied in the phrase “there’s pride in every American heart,” a contention I dismiss emphatically and with prejudice. I won’t belabor the lyrics further here, but if you don’t know them (lucky you!) it’s easy to go and read them for yourself.
In any case, Greenwood asserts several times throughout his Times interview that he sees the song as apolitical and promoting American unity. However, as the interview proceeds, it becomes clear that Greenwood’s definition of unity is not the same as Herndon’s—a point Herndon, disappointingly (and with typical Times breezy affected neutrality), never addresses.
The most telling moment comes when Herndon asks Greenwood what he considers the biggest threat to the United States today and Greenwood unhesitatingly answers, “Illegal immigration.” Then, after waxing poetic about “settlers” and the Old West and praising the earlier waves of largely European immigrants who came through Ellis Island, Greenwood volunteers, “If illegal immigrants are allowed to vote, it will change the complexion of who we are. And believe me, there’s a silent majority who believe that we are still all Christian, we’re patriotic, and we wanna retain America as the greatest country on earth, and that’s my greatest threat.” You will not be surprised to learn that the majority of U.S. immigrants today come from Asia and Latin America.
I include these details to point out that when Greenwood and other reactionaries talk about “unity” and the meaning of being American, they aren’t being inclusive. A “real” American, for the Trump administration and supporters like Greenwood, is a Christian, a “patriot” (another loaded term), and a jingoist who finds meaning in so-called “national greatness.” An American is also someone who won’t “change the complexion of who we are.” Greenwood is too savvy to say out loud the racist line that real Americans are White, but his use of “complexion” and his attitude about contemporary immigration waves are telling.
In sum, for Greenwood, an American is someone who for the most part looks, and certainly thinks, feels, believes, and behaves just like him and his fellow travelers. Those who cannot or will not conform to this cisheteronormative, patriarchal, mostly White conservative Christian ideal have no part in the espoused American “unity” that “God Bless the USA” represents. And those who want to translate this ideal into policy would like to force the rest of us to conform or disappear from public life, as the barrage of executive orders the Trump administration issued on Monday makes abundantly clear.
With all this in mind, what could it possibly mean to consider a song like “God Bless the USA” apolitical? Why, the same thing it means to be “apolitical” at a typical White American family’s Christmas dinner. As I wrote last month for The Flytrap:
…politics is always present; it’s just a matter of what politics is given space for expression. There’s nothing apolitical about “Uncle Bob” downing an eggnog or three and beginning to rant and rave about how Black Lives Matter is “a bunch of thugs” while insisting he’s “not racist.” And when only the niece who pushes back gets shouted down and rebuked for being “divisive,” the rest of the family isn’t defending “civility” or “the Christmas spirit.” What the family’s actually defending is white supremacy and the American status quo.
One should always ask what’s at stake when the terms “apolitical” and “divisive” are invoked, because they often reveal the power dynamics that “respectable” people would rather remain unspoken. The rhetoric of being “apolitical” is of particular interest to me here, because it’s often used to shut down dissent by seizing moral authority with the assertion of a false distinction. My opponent is being “political,” you see, but me, I’m just being “objective” and “reasonable.” This one weird trick works just as well for those who maintain that religion and spirituality are inherently good as it does for those protecting their self-interested White, straight, male, and/or Christian privilege. Of course, they’re often the same people.
The current ubiquity of Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA”—the ultimate Christian nationalist anthem—is no omen of inclusion or a Trumpist pivot to “unity.” For those Americans invested in the ideals of human rights, democracy, and diversity as strength, there are hard times ahead. And for those who didn’t grow up with authoritarian White supremacist and/or religious dynamics in their homes, churches, Christian schools, or local communities, the times may feel particularly disorienting. With that in mind, here’s one piece of unsolicited advice from a transgender exvangelical: when communicating with authoritarians, never assume they mean the same thing you mean when they use the same words—and never take their rhetoric at face value.
