Church is the State now
Among other things, I went for a bike ride today. I went around the Hill area, and eventually made my way down to the Mall. Today there was a fairly large taxpayer funded, White House sponsored “rededication ceremony” under the banner of the United States' 250th anniversary. It was first and foremost a protestant, evangelical, Christian prayer and worship event.
The perimeter of it was behind fencing.
The stage featured a faux colonnade evoking the architecture of U.S. government buildings and monuments. But the backdrop mimicked the design of a stone church with stained-glass windows. Right there, up in your face, the mashing together of a specific sense of Church and the State.
Outside the fence: a heavy police presence, including National Guard MRAPs — because that’s what police looks like in this town now. Tour buses and RVs ringed the site, branded by the various factions contributing to the performance. One of them stitched together contemporary patriotism and military service with the images of historical figures widely recognized as patriots, Frederick Douglass among them.
Douglass did proclaim a faith. He was also an abolitionist. Not sure how you reconcile defending a monotheistic worldview that includes actively pursuing policies that return to Jim Crow with anything Douglass actually wanted.
When Church is the State, anyone’s faith is a costume for your legitimacy.
Were DC ever granted statehood, it would be called the Douglass Commonwealth. Douglass made his home here while fighting for Black voting rights, women’s suffrage, and against lynching. Free DC, the DC Statehood Green Party, and so many others have been fighting for full enfranchisement of DC citizens for years. The heretics on today’s stage want the costume, not the constituency.