“Our Father, Which Art In The White House…”

When religious nationalism edges out true patriotism, our citizens are already at war.

First published July 4, 2024.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto

I’ve gone silent here lately.

I’m having trouble finding my words. I am a veteran, I consider myself to be appropriately patriotic, and I do appreciate the lifestyle we enjoy here in the United States that sets us apart from, oh, say, Palestine, the Congo, or Ukraine.

And yet, I don’t have to pretend it’s all good.

But it’s the fourth of July, so let’s talk about it.

Stifled terror with every headline

I have held my media consumption at arm’s length here lately. We are in a full-blown state of hysteria. I can’t open a news site, much less any social media platform, without seeing Americans absolutely melting down.

I first read about Project 2025 over a year ago. I sounded the alarm then. I read only half of it and had to stop, trembling, and process what I had just consumed. At the time, no one was talking about it. I mentioned it, and it fell on deaf ears and my concerns were dismissed, even laughed off.

Now it’s all anyone can talk about. Project 2025: The Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the next administration. Chock full of constitutional violations and previously unfathomable restrictions on Americans’ independence in the name of Christian Nationalism.

It clearly outlines establishing a state religion.

It clearly outlines deconstructing checks and balances (which has already begun with the most recent Supreme Court ruling).

It clearly violates the rights and humanity of American citizens, namely women, the LGBTQ+ community, and anyone who identifies as anything other than Christian (and a blasphemous version of “Christianity,” at that).

But, and hear me out, what if this is all smoke and mirrors? Why would they reveal their hand like this? Why publish the document that outlines such a terrifying future that it will surely sway undecided voters against voting for the GOP candidate?

The skeptic in me is screaming: it can’t be this simple!

How could our American populace contain such a significant swath of people so very eager and willing to sign away their rights as promised in this widely publicized document?

I feel like I’m missing something, that we are missing something, some crucial key to unlock this insanity. To make sense of it all. To balance all of it, to bring perspective, and to provide explanations for it.

The headlines are increasingly terrifying. The Supreme Court has taken unprecedented action to give the President previously inconceivable power.

The debate may as well have been a Saturday Night Live skit.

Our elected officials across the nation have largely eschewed dignified discourse and are behaving like buffoons in opposing teams’ pep rallies: mocking, accusing, and discrediting rather than providing their own qualifications and plans for voters’ discernment.

It’s all a circus. We’ve gone off the rails. Nothing is sacrosanct anymore, and no real vestige of ‘patriotism’ remains, but yes, let’s barbeque and watch some fireworks.

Why the hell not?

The certainty of uncertainty

If there’s one thing we all know about life it’s that it’s unpredictable. No one can predict that car flying out of nowhere and hitting us, totaling our car, breaking our ribs, disrupting whatever plans we had for that car, or our body for that matter, for the immediate future.

No one can foresee a hurricane, fire, or tornado completely destroying their home in a matter of moments.

No one can foresee a reality television star and one of NYC’s most hated ‘businessmen’ becoming the President of the United States.

But here we are.

For many of those instances, we have insurance. Insurance policies repair or replace our vehicles, cover our medical bills, replace furniture and possessions, and return to us some of what was lost.

What is America’s insurance policy? What protections are in place assuring that we don’t lose what we have collectively fought for over the course of centuries?

Until last week, I felt a small measure of assurance in the built-in checks and balances afforded by our Constitution and the various amendments, but now? Now I’m not so sure. If the highest judges of our land can get together and decide to dismantle protections and safeguards that have been in place for over two hundred years, where will they stop?

This court has already stripped American women of the rights to bodily autonomy and medical privacy.

This court has now given the office of the Presidency unprecedented power (power which, I may add, the currently sitting Democratic President will refuse to exploit because he believes he’s taking the high road).

It’s almost as if behaving with integrity, ethics, and adherence to a moral code is now completely taboo in our highest elected offices. American citizens are wearing T-shirts and hats proudly emblazoned with large font reading, “I’m voting for the felon.”

So what’s our insurance policy if they do?

History is cyclical

The hardest part of all of this for me is being a parent and attempting to appropriately plan for all possible outcomes beginning the second week in November.

I have a trans kid. I have gay kids. I have daughters. I have young adult children who need to survive in this economy. I have sons who are registered with the Selective Service and thus subject to any draft a hysterical, immature President may decide to enact.

My household stands to lose a whole fucking lot if this Project 2025 is, indeed, the actual plan for our next administration. Perhaps even their lives.

I‘ve been contemplating: what were mothers thinking and feeling in Europe in the 1930s?

In recent years, I’ve developed an affinity for vintage periodicals and collecting them. On a recent trip to Asheville, North Carolina, I stopped by the gem of a bookstore, Downtown Books & News, and there I found a copy of Scribner’s Magazine from January 1936. The headline articles?

“Liberty and The Dictators: I. Communist False Fronts by Eugene Lyons, II. Fascism at the Door by Percy Winner”

Other articles entitled “The Changing Constitution — Is It Adequate Today?” by James Truslow Adams and “Fourteen Republican Conventions” by Nicholas Murray Butler, piqued my interest. I snapped it up, but I waited several days before reading.

I was on vacation, after all.

But now I’m home. Settled, calm, I dive in, and I am caught breathless time and time again throughout these pieces as they devastatingly and with precise accuracy predict exactly, exactly, what is happening… right… now.

Percy Winner strikes to the heart of how fascism infiltrates and takes power in “Fascism at the Door.”

“ …the basic principle of fascism as a secular religion — as a religiose nationalism or national religion — is rooted in missionary zeal, the zeal of a particular nation on a universal mission. Fascism is always totalitarian. Religious and authoritative in essence, it must have divine sanction for a state whose totality contains a God symbol. The inspired messiah-leader must have visions, messages from God to justify his mission.”

He goes on…

“Mecklin speaks of “this naive supernaturalism” which even now “constitutes the deadliest handicap of American Protestantism in its strenuous efforts to adjust itself to a society that bases its values on democracy and looks to science for intellectual guidance.” That handicap would be an American fascism’s [sic] advantage. An American fascism would not have what Mussolini had in Rome. It would have something even better for its own purposes. It would have two great traditions to draw on. One, the New England tradition, takes up the Hebraic authoritative selection and leads it through Calvin to America. The other, of the west and south, provides ‘crass emotionalism, anti-intellectualism, deeply implanted antagonism to the ‘respectable’ and cultured classes, crude psychology of sin, and ferociously harsh Hebraistic ethics.” An American fascism need have no difficulty with its authoritative sanction. The churches will help.” [emphasis mine]

Photo credit: AP News

“The people want a faith and temporarily respond to the dynastic implications of the President’s name.

“Our Father, which art in the White House…””

I find myself bewildered, and scared if I’m being honest, at the reality of these prophetic words unfolding before my eyes.

Probably much too late (I do have a sometimes crippling idealistic streak, and I kept thinking our nation would turn just in time to miss the iceberg), I’ve begun to take some action for our family. We made one big step in purchasing rather remote land. We’re discussing what other plans we can make in the event of some drastic action within the borders of the United States.

My husband and I used to joke about growing old together during the fall of the empire. It’s not really funny anymore.

On this fourth of July, I’d implore you to contemplate the true nature of the word ‘liberty’ and what it means to each of us, and how willing you are to just give it up.

I want us to miss the iceberg, guys. I want a collective ‘coming of senses’ and for the scales to fall from the eyes of millions who are playing disastrous games with our nation.

I firmly believe it begins and ends with each of us. Each individual can decide we are not going down this road and put on the brakes, and if we all stopped this insanity in its tracks we could actually salvage this thing.

It’s time. It’s time to lay down this Christian Nationalist fantasy once and for all. It’s time to regain our senses and separate our religious beliefs from our political allegiances.

It’s time to believe the man who said he wants to be ‘dictator for a day,’ and vote accordingly. In my book, a day is one day too many to have a dictator in the White House.

Don’t you agree?

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CounterStory Media is working to cover the new regime, examine Executive Orders, and to publish in limited runs The New Papers, a one-page free pamphlet distributed as widely as possible covering the actions of this administration. Telling our stories, like the story of my son, humanizes the nature of these horrific actions by our government’s leaders. If you would like to share your story, as a member of the LGBT community, or as an immigrant or migrant or refugee, please send me a message.
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I wrote this piece long before the election and the inauguration of our current President. I could see what was coming from far away, as could many others. I ponder what any of us could have done, any more than we were doing, to alert and inform our fellow countrymen to the facts of who their candidate was, what powers were elevating him to this position, and what those powers’ ultimate goals were. I felt like I was screaming from the mountaintops!

As I recover from being, honestly, scarily sick with the flu (and potentially Covid, tests were out), I’m trying to regain my footing with the absolute fire hose of action by the new regime. I’m working on a piece entitled ‘Fever Dream’ that will be more in-depth, cover more ground, and get into some Executive Orders again. I appreciate your patience as I’ve come through this (with my family, including my elderly disabled mother who got very ill). My podcast is on hold until my voice returns… I still very much have full-blown laryngitis.

I’m always marching forward, but sometimes I do get knocked down. I’m back, so look for more content, and quickly. Thanks, friends.

My name is Melissa Corrigan, and I’m a freelance writer/thought sharer/philosopher in coastal Virginia. I am a mom, a wife, a veteran, and so much more. I deeply enjoy sharing my thoughts and receiving feedback that sparks genuine, respectful conversation.

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