A call to arms: Defending America’s soul in an age of extremism

In a speech before last fall’s midterm elections, President Biden warned we are engaged in a battle for the nation’s soul. “As I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault,” he said. “We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise.”

So, let’s not pretend otherwise. We should start by not calling this a battle. There are white militias that would like nothing better than civil war. They’ve been arming themselves and training for a long time.

Instead, we should defend America’s fundamental principles of freedom, equality, morality, dignity and loyalty to the same Constitution. These are the “soul of the nation.”

The various groups engaged in the assault include white supremacists, white separatists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Christian nationalists, the Ku Klux Klan and an assortment of self-identified patriot organizations on the far-right wing of politics. Experts classify them as Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic and xenophobic. For the sake of brevity, we can call them the “phobics.”

Many of the phobics are racist, have an appetite for violence and a desire for all of us to think and behave as they do. Because that can never happen in a healthy democracy where diversity is respected, some phobics seek out authoritarian-leaning leaders like former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.). They reject political plurality, individual freedom of thought, separation of powers and democratic voting. They want a strong central authority to maintain these conditions. And by creating fear and chaos, they hope the rest of America will accept authoritarianism to get things under control.

Their reappearance in civil society began well before the Jan. 6 riot. In 2020, the Center for America Progress (CAP) warned of the emerging idea of an “embattled white majority which has to defend its power by any means necessary.”

Any means necessary includes violence. Southern Poverty Law Center data show nearly 490 extreme antigovernment groups were active in the United States in 2021, including 92 militias and 52 conspiracy groups. That year, there were 12,822 victims in 10,840 reported hate-crime incidents.

Although not all Republicans agree with phobics, the party as a whole has thus far stayed on the sidelines. Nevertheless, the magazine Wired points out the GOP has become “increasingly authoritarian and extreme in recent years, and it doesn’t seem likely to moderate that in the foreseeable future.”

Phobics are candid about their plans. For example, a survey in February by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution found that a “sizable minority” of Christian nationalists support the idea of an authoritarian leader to keep Christian values in society. A majority also agreed that “true patriots might have to resort to violence to save our country.”

But phobics have a distorted view of patriotism. Real patriots defend the Constitution, including the principle that all men and women are created equal. Whatever our color, origins, abilities and beliefs, we are members of the same nation governed by the same Constitution. We all deserve equal respect, dignity, opportunity and treatment.

The Republican Party’s passive support for distorted patriotism was apparent earlier this month. On May 14, about 150 masked members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front marched in Washington, D.C. Masked, uniformed and disciplined, they gave the impression they are ready for battle. Two days later, House Republicans, many of whom downplay the Jan. 6 riot, tried to justify the show of force by holding a hearing on “left-wing organized violence.”

However, the assault is clearly from the right, where militant groups are trying to build public support with manufactured worries. One is “The Great Replacement” theory — an imaginary plot by Jews and elites to replace the white majority in the United States. White supremacists were alarmed by a Census Bureau prediction in 2008 that minorities would soon be more numerous than whites in America. However, the bureau changed that conclusion after recognizing that America’s most rapidly growing racial group is biracial or multiracial. In other words, there might be a Great Blending, but not a Great Replacement.

The Great Replacement theory is ironic in several ways. First, none of us except Native Americans would be here if not for immigration. Second, whites caused the only actual Great Replacement in American history: White Europeans settled America by stealing land from Native Americas, confining them to reservations on scrublands, attempting to kill their cultures and languages in Indian schools and destroying the natural environment Native Americans revered and cared for.

From 1492 to 1600, acts of violence or pathogens brought from Europe wiped out 90 percent of the indigenous population in North, Central and South America. As a result, more than 60 million indigenous people were reduced to 6 million a century later. Historians say the death toll amounted to 10 percent of the Earth’s population at the time.

Slavery and the forced displacement of indigenous Americans are two great sins of the white race in America — sins that the likes of DeSantis wants to wipe from history books. But white Americans have a moral responsibility to keep that history from repeating itself.

So, when the phobics chant, “You will not replace us,” the rest of white America should respond, “You will not disgrace us.” The majority of the white majority will defend America’s soul.

William S. Becker is co-editor and a contributor to “Democracy Unchained: How to Rebuild Government for the People,” a collection of more than 30 essays by American thought leaders on topics such as the Supreme Court’s perceived legitimacy. Becker has served in several state and federal government roles, including executive assistant to the attorney general of Wisconsin. He is currently executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP), a nonpartisan climate policy think tank unaffiliated with the White House.