Remembering J6 as Historical Fact and Myth-making Event
Also: 4 questions for the future, and upcoming events this month.
J6 is one of those moments in American history where you remember where you were when it happened. It’s as if our minds create extra space to hold all those details, because it wants us to remember those moments with clarity.
I remember where I was when Columbine happened (home alone, channel surfing while recovering from an appendectomy), and when I learned of 9/11 (from my freshman roommate; I was still asleep after staying up late).
Both were TV moments. I watched CNN’s Columbine coverage and saw the aftermath of 9/11 on the bigscreen in my dorm’s lobby.
J6 was one of a long line of Twitter moments.
That morning I was working from home, and I had Twitter pulled up as I always did. Trump had never conceded the election, and it was expected that opportunistic Senators like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley would object to the election’s routine certification. There was an ominous threat of violence and unrest, but at the time most of us weren’t aware of just how much Trump’s allies had prepared and organized, and the degree to which groups like the Oathkeepers and Proud Boys had mobilized.
Then the barricades broke and the Capitol was overrun. (Visit uncivilreligion.org to see imagery and video footage from that day.)
Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell had their moments late in the evening, where they said that things had gone too far. But neither they nor the majority of the GOP had the bravery or integrity to impeach Trump and bar him from reaching power again.
My friend
saw the dark potential in how J6 would be remembered, not as a tragic historical event but as a myth-making event. In an 1/9/21 NYT op-ed, he wrote:The lasting legacy of the Jan. 6 insurrection is the myth and symbol of Mr. Trump’s lost cause. He has successfully nurtured a feeling in the 74 million Americans who voted for him that they can trust neither their government nor the electoral process. By encouraging them to question the validity of votes in some of the Blackest cities in the country, such as Detroit, and stoking anger that such constituencies would have the power to swing an election, he convinced them that the process is rigged, thus giving his supporters the moral high ground. This creates the foundation for a collective memory based on a separate national identity held together by the tragic stealing of his presidency and the evil of his opponents.
He was right.
Just as the Lost Cause ideology nurtured Southern resentment and recast its loss in the Civil War, the mythologizing of J6 that has happened in the ensuing years has turned J6 into a source of extremist partisan pride rather than national shame.
Upcoming Events
I’ll be speaking at several events this month to discuss my book, Exvangelical & Beyond.
1/10: Secular AZ (virtual)
On 1/10, I will be speaking with Secular AZ as part of their Secular Speaker Series (info forthcoming).
1/16: Fables Books (Goshen, IN)
On 1/16, I will be appearing at Fables Books in Goshen, IN alongside
(author of forthcoming book After Purity: Race, Sex, and Religion in White Christian America) & (author of Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy).Registration is free - learn more here.
1/26: A Seat at the Table Books (virtual)
On 1/26, I will be appearing on a virtual panel hosted by A Seat At The Tables Books in Elk Grove, CA with Chris Tompkins (author of Raising LGBTQ Allies: A Parent’s Guide to Changing the Messages from the Playground).
Register at Eventbrite here.
During the lead-up to the 2020 election, I produced one season of a show I called Powers & Principalities. That season was focused on systemic issues related to white evangelicalism and Christian nationalism.
Following J6, there was a flurry of commentary about Christian nationalism in the form of books, podcasts, documentaries, and countless social media posts across every platform.
People spoke endlessly of the dangers of Christian nationalism. It was all worthwhile. But it was also not enough to deter Trump’s faithful evangelicals & mainline supporters from voting for him a third time, ushering him back to power.
In the last days before Trump’s inauguration, all I have are questions:
What chance is there to “reach” or persuade people who have been indoctrinated by decades of right-wing media?
What language will be most effective?
What coalitions can we build?
How can those coalitions create collective action?
In October, it was made clear to me that even though I have written a book that details the way my own mind was changed, I may never be able to change the minds of even those who know me personally. I know that so many others across the country have had similar realizations since the election.
That brings me to my next two questions. On Election Day, I published an op-ed in RNS with the title “Exvangelicals, nones, secular Americans are undertapped in fight against Christian nationalism.” In it, I argued that religious nones deserve more outreach and should be seen as equal partners in resisting Christian nationalism.
The first comment on the article proudly declared that “there is no such thing as Christian nationalism.”
This comment symbolizes the difficulty of talking about this topic. It’s very good for the academic/sociological set, but it doesn’t do anything for a general audience—especially those who follow rightwing media, where the term has been appropriated (like MTG selling “proud Christian nationalist” shirts) or bankrupted of its meaning.
If you have to preface your use of “Christian nationalism” by referring to Benedict Anderson’s notion of nationalism in Imagined Communities, or referring to sociological studies, you’ve already lost most people’s attention. That’s unfortunate—Benedict Anderson’s analysis is great!—but it’s not the meme-able language we need.1
Further, even those who should be allies against Christian nationalism will quibble about the language instead of recognizing the threat that the language represents and acting against it. In my work, I’ve known advocates inside the Beltway to balk at the terms ‘nationalism,’ as well as ‘Christian nationalism’ because they’re “not specific enough” in their own way. This is exhausting and demoralizing.
That quibbling is also demonstrative of problems amongst the liberal-to-leftist groups, both in government and outside of it. Regardless of whether or not the reputation is warranted, Democrats are seen as scolds, and group after group succumbs to infighting and navel-gazing one-upmanship online. This is another form of demoralizing that discourages people from long-term advocacy or community building, and a major barrier to creating the will for collective action.
But despite these challenges, I remain determined to answer these questions and to maintain hope. Hope is a choice.
Marshall McLuhan wrote that “electric man lives mythically and all-at-once.” Conservatives have offered up a myth for people to believe in, one that for many includes a mythological recasting of J6. Their counterparts on the left have no such unifying myth or shared story, and likely disagree about whether that is a feature or a bug.
But regardless of what language we ascribe to it, we need a compelling story and goal to pursue with the same dogged determination as those who want to usher in “God’s kingdom” through governance.
All I know for certain is that these questions and their potential answers are worth pursuing, and far better than giving in to resignation. This will be part of what I do here in the coming months and years.
The closest thing I’ve seen on the left was Tim Walz’s short-lived “they’re weird” and “mind your own damn business.” But those points were later downplayed.
Thought-provoking material. I want to be part of shifting the culture’s understanding. A major reason why I’m commenting now is due to what you did by creating the Exvan FB group. I know that change is possible and it’s a slow, gradual process. Thank you once again