My dearest partisans:
We’re going off book on this spooky channel to talk about politics today – but I promise it’s fucking weird. Once in a while the stars line up and present a goth political story so good that I would be denying the two wolves inside of me if I didn’t write about it.
SO. I’ve been following the RNC convention closely – never turn your back on a nascent fascist movement – especially the messages and language. These are carefully scripted events, but every once in a while some super telling weirdness will pop up in a speech, and I think it’s important to pay attention to those moments. And this week, the vice presidential nominee talked about A CEMETERY in his speech.
JD Vance’s nomination speech was full of the usual Republican bullshit about immigrants, fentanyl, and the heartland. It was heavy on what we call nationalism. Nationalism is an ideology that prioritizes loyalty to the nation state above all else. It is a movement of the modern era, starting in the mid 1800s in Europe. I’m not a political scientist, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. The American and French Revolutions, as I understand them, were products of nationalistic spirit. So were most of the colonial independence movements of the twentieth century. On the surface, the idea seems kind of predictable and benign – of course people place their own countries above others, and take pride in their own nation.
That shit can get dark real quick, though, especially when it starts to confuse ethnicity for nationality, or descends into fascism. Fascism is nationalism on steroids, placing nation and race above all else, and is characterized by an authoritarian leader. Countries like Hungary and Russia are pretty openly fascist now, driven by nationalistic tendencies and strong man leaders.
Fascism is objectively bad! You will not find someone who disagrees in polite society. Instead, they will call themselves a nationalist or a patriot. They may characterize their philosophy as “America First” – whether or not they understand what that slogan actually refers to. Donald Trump has called himself a nationalist, and it’s clear that the current party is led by those principles, which many of us actually think are fascist. As writers at the Cato Institute remind us,
“Nationalists in the real world know what they’ve signed up for; intellectuals who argue otherwise are fooling themselves. Real-world nationalism is a primitive, statist, protectionist, anti-capitalist, xenophobic, and often ethnocentric proto-ideology of “my tribe best, your tribe bad,” with the tribe lying at the core.”
(Look at me and CATO staffers. BFFs!).
Most of the nationalism in Vance’s speech was straightforward – criticizing NAFTA (the 90’s called and they want their talking point back, bro), trade deals with China, the war in Iraq, “cheap foreign labor,” illegal immigrants, open borders, the preservation of American material industry, the evils of foreign oil, the importance of cultural conformity, and a whole bunch of God and Guns. The speech took a weird little detour, however, when he started talking about A FAMILY CEMETERY.
This is my wheelhouse, you guys. I sat right the fuck up for this one! The cemetery story is a rich text and I have reproduced it here, so that you do not have to actually listen to this man deliver it. I highlighted the important parts so you don’t die of boredom:
“Now when I proposed to my wife, we were in law school, and I said, ‘Honey, I come with $120,000 worth of law school debt, and a cemetery plot on a mountainside in Eastern Kentucky.’
And I guess standing here tonight it’s just gotten weirder and weirder, honey. But that’s what she was getting. Now that cemetery plot in Eastern Kentucky is near my family’s ancestral home. And like a lot of people, we came from the mountains of Appalachia into the factories of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.”
Now that’s Kentucky coal country, one of the 10 —
Now, it’s one of the 10 poorest counties in the entire United States of America. They’re very hardworking people, and they’re very good people. They’re the kind of people who would give you the shirt off their back even if they can’t afford enough to eat.
And our media calls them privileged and looks down on them.
But they love this country, not only because it’s a good idea, but because in their bones they know that this is their home, and it will be their children’s home, and they would die fighting to protect it.
That is the source of America’s greatness.
As a United States senator, I get to represent millions of people in the great state of Ohio with similar stories, and it is the great honor of my life.
Now in that cemetery, there are people who were born around the time of the Civil War. And if, as I hope, my wife and I are eventually laid to rest there, and our kids follow us, there will be seven generations just in that small mountain cemetery plot in eastern Kentucky. Seven generations of people who have fought for this country. Who have built this country. Who have made things in this country. And who would fight and die to protect this country if they were asked to.
Now. Now that’s not just an idea, my friends. That’s not just a set of principles. Even though the ideas and the principles are great, that is a homeland. That is our homeland. People will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home. And if this movement of ours is going to succeed, and if this country is going to thrive, our leaders have to remember that America is a nation, and its citizens deserve leaders who put its interests first.
Now we won’t agree on every issue of course, not even in this room. We may disagree from time to time about how best to reinvigorate American industry and renew American family. That’s fine. In fact its more than fine, it’s good.
But never forget that the reason why this united Republican Party exists, why we do this, why we care about those great ideas and that great history, is that we want this nation to thrive for centuries to come.
Now eventually, in that mountain cemetery, my children will lay me to rest.
And when they do, I would like them to know that thanks to the work of this Republican Party, the United States of America, it is strong, and as proud and as great as ever.
This is. . . weird, no??? When was the last time you heard a politician talk about their own death in a speech? Is it a metaphor? Does it have some kind of double meaning? What exactly is he doing with this reference? I was working on angles for this essay and then I read John Ganz’ This Land is Mein Land and learned a new term: mortuary nationalism. And I hit the fucking Internet, because this is absolutely my jam.
Mortuary nationalism comes from French philosopher Michel Winock. Ganz writes:
“America is their homeland. This is what the French historian Michel Winock once called “mortuary nationalism.” There’s the soil one’s ancestors are laid to rest in. And the continuity of the blood: The “seven generations of people” of people who built and fought for this country. The country they feel “in their bones.” Usually in a convention there’s at least lip service to the other types of people who also built and fought for this country, with other images and vistas of being American. But Vance’s view is parochial; he makes it clear it’s about his type of people. To be sure, this is softened by a dose of cosmopolitanism: his “immigrant” wife and mixed kids. His wife’s family might be “great people,” but they come second, not first.”
I HAVE SOME THOUGHTS! First of all, let’s talk about the imagery of the country cemetery. This is kind of a quintessential American image. As a nation of immigrants – you know, outside of the people we smallpoxed to take it over – our closest ties to the land are going to be where our American ancestors are buried. Nationalism has to claim the land, because who are the people of a state if not confined to a geographical area? Nationalism is about borders and homeland, and I think that for a nation of people descended from other places, a cemetery is the most tangible evidence of their hold on the land.
Cemeteries get a level of reverence in this country, but the older ones – especially in the country – are often in disrepair. In other words, they’re revered only in attitude. No one is doing the work to keep them up. This reveals the hypocrisy in the worshipful rhetoric about the people who “built this country.” We’re not actually taking care of them, much in the way that Republicans bluster about the military and children and shit and then block all meaningful policy to say, end child hunger or provide safe schools. We’re letting those bones get covered over with weeds and broken fences.
Notice how Vance mentions the Civil War, but doesn’t say exactly which side the people in this cemetery fought for. A deft rhetorical move to be sure, he’s implying that either both sides co-exist in death or that it simply doesn’t matter. This is obviously not true. The Civil War still matters a great deal in the US, it’s still an open wound in this country. Kentucky was technically neutral in the war, but it was a border state and that didn’t keep either army out. It was also, notably, a slaveholding state. This reminds me of when Vance tried to avoid talking about race in Hillbilly Elegy, only to end up sounding more racist. By putting us in the liminal, non-partisan world of the 🤷♀️ civil war dead, all he does is leave it up to us to guess, and I bet you most of us ended up with “Confederate.”
Most bizarrely, Vance talks about his own death, when he’ll be laid to rest in this mythical spot. There’s a big place for the glorious dead in nationalist rhetoric. Think of Lenin’s embalmed body, still on display 100 years after his death. He’s not even the only one!! Even regular old patriotism requires valorization of our war dead – we build monuments to them, place wreaths, light flames. With this speech, Vance is trying to put himself in the pantheon of martyrs a little early.
I think Vance genuinely sees himself as sacrificing his life for his country. Coming on the heels of the assassination attempt, I think he’s making a reach for sainthood here. Placing himself among the ranks of his “real American” kinfolk dead is the most terrifying and sincere part of this whole stupid speech. All of the talk of blood and bones and things made and lost embodies this idea of Nationalism, and putting his body back into the earth literally makes him part of it.
And I think it’s super fucking weird! And I wanted to tell you all about it because literally why else do I have this newsletter!! Thank you for indulging me with this Kirkland brand Atlantic Op-Ed, we’ll be back to ghosts next time.
Xo,
Court