Sarah Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Chair of Public Understanding of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. In her book, Behold, America (Bloomsbury 2018) she explores the entangled history of America First and the American Dream.
'The American dream is dead,' Donald Trump said when announcing his candidacy for president in 2015. How would he revive it? By putting 'America First'.
The 'American Dream' and 'America First' are two of the most loaded phrases in America today, and also two of the most misunderstood. The American Dream began as a pledge for equality rather than as a dream of supremacy and 'making it big'. America First has not just served as an isolationist term, but as an early slogan of the Ku Klux Klan with surprising links to the present.
Both phrases were born nearly a century ago and instantly tangled over capitalism, democracy and race, coming to embody opposing views in the battle to define the soul of the nation. Behold, America recounts the unknown history of these two expressions using the voices that helped shape that debate, from Capitol Hill to the newsroom of the New York Times, students to senators, dreamers to dissenters.
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AXIS MUNDY AXIS MUNDY Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Skidmore College, and I am joined today by an incredible scholar and writer, and that is Professor Sarah Churchwell.
Professor Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and Chair of Public Understanding of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London.
She's the author of Careless People, Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of the Great Gatsby, which is an incredible title, and also The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe.
She's also written widely in many outlets, including The Guardian, New Statesman, Financial Times, Times Literary Supplement, excuse me.
New York Times Book Review, and just recently the New York Review of Books, and she also comments regularly on arts, culture, and politics for television and radio.
So, Professor Churchwell, thank you for joining me all the way from London.
I really appreciate it.
Thanks so much for having me.
Well, we are here today to talk about your most recent book, and that book is Behold America, the Entangled History of America First and the American Dream.
And I don't usually do this, but this book is so, in my mind, important and unique that I just want to read a little bit of the description because I think it'll help people understand exactly what you're doing in the book in ways that are better than any summary I can give.
So, here's what it says.
The American Dream is dead, Donald Trump said when announcing his candidacy for president in 2015.
How would he revive it?
By putting America First.
The American Dream and America First are two of the most loaded phrases in America today, and also two of the most misunderstood.
The American Dream began as a pledge for equality rather than as a dream of supremacy, and making it big.
America First has not just served as an isolationist term, but as an early slogan of the KKK with surprising links to the present.
In 1927, a KKK riot led to the arrest of seven men, among them a certain Fred C. Trump.
Both the phrases, the American Dream and America First, were born nearly a century ago and instantly tangled over capitalism, democracy, and race, coming to embody opposing views in the battle to define the soul of the nation.
In Behold America, Professor Churchwell recounts the unknown history of these two expressions using the voices that helped shape the debate from Capitol Hill to the newsroom of the New York Times, students to senators, dreamers to dissenters.
And so, first of all, it's an incredible book.
I was telling you before we started recording, I was truly enthralled.
As soon as I heard about the book, I ordered it, picked it up and couldn't put it down.
And one of the reasons is we've just on this show been thinking a lot about Christian nationalism.
We've been thinking a lot about how Christian nationalism is often a cover for racism, xenophobia, misogyny.
Homophobia, queerphobia, etc.
And one of the things that your book does by sort of investigating the relationship between the idea of the American Dream and the slogan, America First, is it really shows us, I think, some of the mechanics of how those kinds of movements can work.
And so you say in the introduction that the protagonist, I love this phrasing, the protagonists of the book are these two expressions, the American Dream and America First.
And you begin in the Gilded Age, sort of the end of the 19th century.
You bring us all the way forward into World War II.
And so let me just begin by asking this.
When one thinks of the American dream, one might imagine unbridled economic opportunity.
The American dream is, I can be a billionaire.
I can make more money than I can ever use, have more things than I will ever need, and flaunt them in every way I can think of.
They might also think of a nation where equality and fairness ensure the well-being of all.
The American dream is, fairness under the law, the chance for everyday people to have a good life, including a house and a family and a home and security and safety.
So I guess here's what I want to ask to start.
How has the American dream been conceived in these two ways over the last century and a half?
Either as unbridled economic opportunity or as the chance to live in a nation where there's equality and fairness for everybody?
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