By David K. Shipler
If
America has a state religion, the historian Robert Kelley used to say, it is
constitutional democracy. Among all the rancorous arguments across the American
spectrum, no compelling bid to abandon the Constitution can be heard. No
rhetorical attack on democracy is made. No threat to the nation, no fear of
insecurity provokes such apostasy.
Even those who would undermine the
Constitution, including the Capitol rioters, have acted in its name. Thus did
Donald Trump’s appeals to “stop the steal” of the election intone the mantra of
democracy, not the authoritarian rule he was attempting to install. Democracy
was hailed by rioters who believed that they were fighting to defend it even as
their insurrection moved to take it down.
That profound hypocrisy becomes
less puzzling when Constitutional democracy is seen as religious. For religion can
be perverted. It can be rationalized into destruction, as a world full of
religious violence has witnessed. A creed can be selectively interpreted, twisted
to fit parochial interests, and ignited as a call to arms. A religion’s righteous
purity can be contaminated with hatred, which is then fueled by religion’s
righteous certainty. No secular reasoning can rebut the divine inspiration, the
holy cause. If it is for good, then that is good. But it is not always so.
American democracy is often elevated
with religious language: “sacred,” “desecrate,” “temple.” Both sides in the
Capitol invasion of January 6 used the terms. The lone police officer who tried
to coax rioters out of the Senate chamber said
gently, “Just want to let you guys know, this is the sacredest place.”
As the mobs roamed the halls
searching for legislators to kidnap or kill, Trump tweeted,
“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election
victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great
patriots. . . . Remember this day forever!”
Once the Senate was taken back, Senator Dick
Durbin declared on the floor: “This is a sacred place. But this sacred place
was desecrated by a mob today on our watch. This temple to democracy was
defiled by thugs, who roamed the halls — sat in that chair, Mr. Vice President
— one that you vacated at 2:15 this afternoon.”
President Biden, in his inaugural address, hailed the survival of democracy against those who sought “to drive us from this sacred ground.”
