A number of news sources have reported on the reactions of Cruz, Huckabee, et al to the gay marriage and ACA decisions. Cruz wishes to call for a Constitutional Convention in order to overturn gay marriage decision (and, of course, for those of us of a naive turn of mind, we’re asking whether he has stopped to check whether a Convention, any form, would overturn or confirm the decision); Huckabee talks about enabling legislation and, without it, the decision is really meaningless. Benen has some commentary on Huckabee and Cruz, if you’re interested.
But I see this as just another step in the long running story of Americans as drama queens. Throughout US history we can see the determined drive towards self-importance in the American psyche. It can be the nationalism of the early 20th century as we joined The Great War and became a great Power, or our ascendance after World War II as we became one of two great powers; when the USSR collapsed, the entire theme nearly collapsed from exhaustion. In the area of religion, the periodic proclamations about the End Days (after all, those who live in the End Days must be more important, eh?), the proliferation of sects (as everyone starting one must know better than the parent sect), the suicide cults, the rise of the new prophets, such as Warren Jeffs, etc.
So now Cruz says the rulings are
“some of the darkest 24 hours in our nation’s history.”
Think of that. Really? Pearl Harbor? Gettysburg? No, this is not a statement of direct rationality; rather, it’s an appeal to the sense of (self-)importance of the base . Suggest there’s a crisis and it’s time to form up ranks. Battle is to be joined and the righteous shall triumph. (Everyone’s righteous, right?)
It makes for heady emotions, appealing to the sense of a national crisis – and you can play an important part in heading it off. It’s dark days, it’s a national crisis, but hey, you’re righteous and don’t stop to think about the other side.
It’s an old tradition with the USA, sadly. When you appeal to our better nature, we can do some amazing things – save West Berlin via airlift, speed aid to other countries, even go to the moon in one heck of a hurry. But our dark sides are equally vulnerable – stir up emotions, the fear, our incipient xenophobia (and, for an immigrant nation, we sure have a lot of that), a certain fundamentalism that is happy to live off the creature comforts provided by science without accepting the fundamentals of that science … and so the message about the justice of gay marriage doesn’t really get through. We’re on stage, the end of days is waiting in the wings, and we have to enact our part, dammit, without regard for how much it costs our fellow Americans.
In short, we’re important. Vast historical forces converge upon us; it’s important to hold the walls, fight the good fight, throw the barbarians down from their ladders.
As Americans, we don’t usually realize it. But just two words: Manifest Destiny. That’s it in a nutshell. It’s easier to feel those dark emotions than think about what our actions may mean for our fellows.
