On this Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for democracy, because it probably isn’t going to last in the United States

Jason Van Ness, LSW 
11/28/2024

 

    Thanksgiving, even though it essentially commemorates the genocide of Indigenous people, is probably second to Christmas in terms of federal holidays that are commercialized and the United States essentially shuts down to observe it. It’s a holiday when most Americans go home and celebrate family, with food. I have fond memories of my childhood when I would eat myself into a food coma with my family and then fall asleep watching The Wizard of Oz on television. As an adult, I enjoy the camaraderie with my family and it always distracts me from the reality of life. Over the past several years I have taken inventory when I go home for Thanksgiving for the things I am grateful for. I have a wonderful and supportive family who don’t put conditions on their love for me, I have an amazing husband, and I have had such wonderful opportunities bestowed upon me through my employer, to name a few. However, this is the first year in some time where I have a fear that is lingering in the back of my mind, and that is the reality that the United States very much may lose democracy and fall into a theocratic/authoritarian regime. Over the past five years in particular, I have seen the continual erosion of democratic norms and values in the United States and it isn’t clear to me where that will end.

 

    Any historian or even experienced journalist will tell you that we never know what the future entails, especially when we are trying to predict political outcomes and related events. If we could, then we would have been better prepared for 911, or the January 6th attack on the capital. As someone who has been hyper-vigilant about White Christian nationalism over the past three years, I will tell you the threats it poses to our country are real, and the effects are happening right in front of our eyes. What we expected from Project 2025 to occur is already coming to fruition, and Trump isn’t even in office, so we are just going to have to wait and see how much more unfolds. What I think worries me the most about White Christian nationalism, is not only that it is connected to authoritarianism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and anti-democratic, just to name a few; it is anti-truth. In the context of anything connected to authoritarianism, as White Christian nationalism is, truth is subjected to power, and facts don’t matter. White Christian nationalists insisted the January 6th attack on the capital was a peaceful protest, and that slavery had benefits. White Christian nationalists overwhelmingly are convinced that the 2020 election was stolen and that climate change is a hoax. White evangelicals like the Catholic church also have deliberately disregarded the truth about sexual abuse within their communities, and believe that all Americans want their children to be indoctrinated into fundamentalist Christian beliefs in schools and insist there is an agenda by LGBTQ+ people in schools, when there is no evidence to that claim. Sadly, the more irrelevant truth becomes among White Christian nationalists, especially those who are creating our laws in this country, the more irrelevant democracy will become, and that is something I truly lose sleep over. So on this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for democracy, because next Thanksgiving I don’t think there is going to be as much to be thankful for when it comes to it. 

 

 

Jason Van Ness

On this Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for democracy, because it probably isn’t going to last in the United States

Jason Van Ness, LSW 
11/28/2024

 

    Thanksgiving, even though it essentially commemorates the genocide of Indigenous people, is probably second to Christmas in terms of federal holidays that are commercialized and the United States essentially shuts down to observe it. It’s a holiday when most Americans go home and celebrate family, with food. I have fond memories of my childhood when I would eat myself into a food coma with my family and then fall asleep watching The Wizard of Oz on television. As an adult, I enjoy the camaraderie with my family and it always distracts me from the reality of life. Over the past several years I have taken inventory when I go home for Thanksgiving for the things I am grateful for. I have a wonderful and supportive family who don’t put conditions on their love for me, I have an amazing husband, and I have had such wonderful opportunities bestowed upon me through my employer, to name a few. However, this is the first year in some time where I have a fear that is lingering in the back of my mind, and that is the reality that the United States very much may lose democracy and fall into a theocratic/authoritarian regime. Over the past five years in particular, I have seen the continual erosion of democratic norms and values in the United States and it isn’t clear to me where that will end.

 

    Any historian or even experienced journalist will tell you that we never know what the future entails, especially when we are trying to predict political outcomes and related events. If we could, then we would have been better prepared for 911, or the January 6th attack on the capital. As someone who has been hyper-vigilant about White Christian nationalism over the past three years, I will tell you the threats it poses to our country are real, and the effects are happening right in front of our eyes. What we expected from Project 2025 to occur is already coming to fruition, and Trump isn’t even in office, so we are just going to have to wait and see how much more unfolds. What I think worries me the most about White Christian nationalism, is not only that it is connected to authoritarianism, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and anti-democratic, just to name a few; it is anti-truth. In the context of anything connected to authoritarianism, as White Christian nationalism is, truth is subjected to power, and facts don’t matter. White Christian nationalists insisted the January 6th attack on the capital was a peaceful protest, and that slavery had benefits. White Christian nationalists overwhelmingly are convinced that the 2020 election was stolen and that climate change is a hoax. White evangelicals like the Catholic church also have deliberately disregarded the truth about sexual abuse within their communities, and believe that all Americans want their children to be indoctrinated into fundamentalist Christian beliefs in schools and insist there is an agenda by LGBTQ+ people in schools, when there is no evidence to that claim. Sadly, the more irrelevant truth becomes among White Christian nationalists, especially those who are creating our laws in this country, the more irrelevant democracy will become, and that is something I truly lose sleep over. So on this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for democracy, because next Thanksgiving I don’t think there is going to be as much to be thankful for when it comes to it.