America's Mythic Story & Donald Trump
A screenwriter's perspective on Mythic Stories, how they explain Trump's appeal, and where to go from here
I was raised in a Hindu household. As a child, I heard the tales of the Ramayan, wherein the blue-skinned Lord Ram rescues his wife Sita from the ten-headed demon-king Ravan with the help of the divine monkey-god Hanuman. I remember being fixated at the time on how outlandish these stories seemed. I had never seen anyone with blue skin or an elephant head or ten heads or four arms. How am I supposed to believe this? How does anyone believe this, for that matter? It was beyond me.
Recently, as I’ve gotten older and experienced more of adult life and its challenges, I’ve begun to find value in Hindu and Buddhist teachings - lessons like Balance, Stages of Life, Karma, Dharmic Duty and Freedom from Earthly Desires. In the process, I’ve stopped scrutinizing these stories for literal accuracy and instead understood them as metaphors, or more accurately, myths.
Myths aren’t meant to be strictly accurate. Certainly, there are people who fervently believe the events in the Ramayan actually occurred, same as there are people who deeply believe in the Garden of Eden and other Christian myths. But even many true believers would agree the real value of those myths isn’t in presenting an accurate historical record, but rather in the lessons they convey. Myths are foundational beliefs or teachings wrapped in narrative story, an art form that has been with us for thousands of years, even preceding written language.
Myths have another fundamental purpose: they’re Shibboleths. I am not a religious person, so why do I observe Diwali but not Hanukkah or Easter? I do it as an expression of my Indian heritage, as if to acknowledge or re-emphasize my Indian-ness. And hey, if my offerings to the Goddess of Wealth Lakshmi yield great financial returns, that’s A-Okay too.
We are most familiar with religious myths, but countries also have Mythic Stories. What makes Italians, Italian? What makes the Chinese, Chinese? The foundational stories of these cultures transcend specific government regimes and political boundaries. Instead, if you asked one of their citizens from whence their culture truly comes, they would likely answer with some version of a Mythic Story.
So what is America’s Mythic Story? I believe it’s a very clear narrative that has been told for centuries: America is a Land of Opportunity where Anybody can become Somebody. Our Mythic Story even has a name: the American Dream.
America has broadcast this Story through her cultural, media, and even intelligence & paramilitary establishments. The Story played a prominent role in the Cold War, Westward Expansion, the Industrial Boom of the 20th century and in the country’s infancy. But there is a wrinkle: it isn’t true. Or rather, it isn’t true for everybody. The Mythic Story and its inherent contradictions originate in the founding documents themselves. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” begins the Declaration of Independence, written & signed in part by slaveholders, establishing a country in which only white male landowners could vote. For others, the American experience has been very different: from Black slaves to Chinese railroad workers to Indigenous tribes to the Irish and Italians to Filipinos to the interned Japanese to Hispanic and Latin populations to women to the LGBT+ community to Sikhs and Muslims to the mentally ill to the disabled to the incarcerated to the conscripted to blue-collar laborers to H1B immigrants to…
You get the point. For essentially all of America’s history, a sizable portion (if not majority) of her inhabitants have not enjoyed a society configured for their prosperity. And in recent years, by my observation many efforts have been taken not just to point out the falsehood of the Story, but in fact to discredit it. Many activists and commentators argue that to recite the Story is to cover up its injustices. Buying into the Story is not just ignorant, but problematic. This sentiment is certainly not universal, but it isn’t niche, either. And I believe it has outsized representation within what is now a national-centric media and cultural apparatus.
But there’s one problem: the Story was never meant to be wholly accurate. Like any Mythic Story, it is a Shibboleth - it outlines a foundational belief about who we are that connects Americans and distinguishes us from other cultures. Would the Chinese Mythic Story be totally accurate and encompass all of its citizens equally? Likely not. In America’s case, it is a Mythic Story based not on blood or soil but on ideas, which accommodates the integration of people across racial, ethnic, religious and other identarian lines.
America is a diverse place. The reality is, you cannot compose an American Narrative that equally represents the experience of White Protestant male landowners and Black slaves and Indigenous tribes and every other sub-group in between and maintain historical accuracy. But thankfully, historical accuracy is not required. Mythic Stories are movies, not documentaries. They are also powerful. They’ve endured for thousands of years and people believe in them. Many if not most Americans believe in our country’s Story, which brings us to the 45th President of the United States.
Much - too much - has been written about Donald Trump’s appeal and his passionate base of supporters. In fact, I believe he has become somewhat of a Rohrschach test, those ink blots where the psychiatrist asks you what you see and your answer says more about you than it does the ink blot. Similarly, I believe most theories around Trump’s appeal say more about the author’s worldview than about Trump. When you see his rallies, do you see racial animus, misogyny, economic anxiety, cultural conservatism or fascistic jingoism? All of the above? Something else?
Movements that garner support to the tune of 73 million people are clearly complex and go beyond any one explanation. But as a professional storyteller, I have noticed one aspect in particular that I have not seen covered in the media or the commentariat: Donald Trump has passionately defended America’s Mythic Story at a time when it is under attack from within. His iconic slogan speaks to restoring or upholding national Greatness. He embraces American Exceptionalism. He even went so far as to announce plans to revise history books to protect our National Myth. And as we’ve seen, this approach seems to work.
What are all those enthusiastic MAGA fans cheering for at those rallies? Why are they so passionate? Surely not the Tax Cut and Jobs Act. And now we can add to the mix the 2020 election, in which Trump notably increased his overall vote count. What’s more, he improved his vote-share among most all minority groups. The only poll-delineated demographic group with which he lost ground was White Men. These results, counter-intuitive to many, have sparked a new wave of think pieces and post-mortems. Much of the focus has been on Progressive vs. Moderate Liberal policy: “Defund the Police” and “Socialism” and the “Green New Deal” and revolution vs. incrementalism. Recategorizations of Hispanics to distinguish Cubans and Venezuelans from Mexicans and other South Americans. Separating immigrants from their 1st and 2nd generation children. Distinguishing the Vietnamese from other Asians. Actual earnest speculation about Black and Hispanic male “machismo” (seriously). Frantic searches to explain what seems unexplainable.
None of the takes I’ve seen address Trump’s embrace of America’s Mythic Story to counter its liberal rejection. I don’t believe the results were a referendum on liberal or progressive policy. Missouri and Florida both voted for the President while passing ballot measures to raise their minimum wages to $15 per hour. Cannabis legalization passed everywhere it was on the ballot. I believe this was a referendum on messaging. The reality is, most Americans do not believe America is a hellish wasteland filled with injustice forcibly exporting its evil around the world. One group that really does not buy into that characterization? Immigrants. Those who have sacrificed to come here and faced discrimination and other adversity once they arrived generally do not believe it was all for naught or a waste. The Story is what attracted them here and they believe in it even as they experience its contradictions first-hand. It should not be a surprise that many of them voted for whom they believe is its defender and against its detractors.
I am not advocating white-washing our country’s past or ignoring its injustices. But if I were a Democratic strategist, which I am not, I would strongly make the case that the Big Lesson is to use America’s Mythic Story to sell your policy aims - don’t tear it down to prove a point. After all, as anyone who has ever been in a relationship can testify, being “right” is often a pyrrhic victory. Instead, bend the knee at the altar of "America is a Land of Opportunity where Anybody can become Somebody". Sell your ideas by connecting them to the Story, showing how they embody the Story’s message and promise. And never challenge the Story, because it's so powerful, it can buoy even a candidate as flawed as Donald Trump to victory (2016) or near-victory (2020).
I believe many Republicans are understanding this message better than Democrats. A record number of Republican women and minorities were elected to Congress this November, and underneath the White grievance politics there is a nascent multicultural populism building within the GOP. The more they embrace the Story, and the more Democrats walk away from it, the more ground they will gain. As frustrated as Democrats are with the electoral college, they should not assume they will win the popular vote forever, either.
I am neither a politician nor a partisan. Frankly, as a minority myself, I believe the best situation for nonwhite voters (or any voter) would be to have two credible options. I was not inspired to write this because of a drive to further the Democratic Party’s cause. My inspiration arose because as a screenwriter, I am passionate about fearless truth-seeking through narrative story. And I saw a Truth that was not being reported.
But don’t take it from me. Take it from Sicilian immigrant Amerigo Bonasera, the fictional undertaker who spoke the iconic opening four words of The Godfather:
“I believe in America.”
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Nihaar Sinha is a screenwriter and Founder/CEO of Indo-SoCal lifestyle brand Maiya. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.
Great--this reminds me of Richard Rorty's Achieving Our Country. And before that Todd Gitlin--who said that patriotism is the precondition of politics.