2021–2022 Master vertalen F. Albers
Engels: Studie van het cultuurgebied
AM = America | gvt(s). = government(s)
Goal of this course
- Deepen our knowledge on the mechanisms of this strange country
- AM is mostly being told as a ‘white’ story Look at the story of AM from four ethnically
different angles:
o What does AM mean to the different peoples in AM?
Trying to rephrase the question ‘What does AM mean?’ by looking at answers
from different cultural groups in society
Current state of affairs
- Donald Trump affected democracy & American institutions
- Major battle raging in AM over whether they should fix the country or not
- On 30 September 2020, Parliament narrowly avoided a national gvt. shutdown of AM over
fundings between both parties.
o Definition ‘national gvt. shutdown’: If certain laws don’t get passed between political
parties, the US gvt. shuts down. The gvt. always needs permission to get budget to pay
its employees. When there’s a shutdown, the gvt. does not have any money anymore
to pay its federal servants. This means that federal buildings and things like national
parks shut down because public servants are no longer getting paid. People are forced
to stay home because the gvt. cannot pay their employees anymore.
Happened a few times under Clinton & Obama.
o Republicans will do everything they can to hinder Biden’s presidency, as they did with
Obama.
o 1 October would have been the cut-off date. 30 September they found an agreement
so that the gvt. has money left till the end of December to pay its servants. This way,
they avoided a shutdown.
- Another looming threat: “Debt ceiling should not be raised”
o AM, even though it’s the richest country in the world, also has debts. It borrows money
but of course has to pay that back.
18 October: possibility that the debt ceiling will not be lifted.
Definition: Debt ceiling decides how much money AM can borrow (=
millions). The more money AM needs, the higher this ceiling is lifted but, in
that way, national debt increases.
Now: situation whereby that debt ceiling will be reached and must be lifted if
AM is to be able to pay off its debts any longer Republicans have said no:
“We know why the Democrats want to lift the ceiling: to fund Biden’s
infrastructure programme. We won’t lend you that money.”
o Biden and the Democrats have $7 trillion infrastructure plan to fix
American roads, bridges, internet, public transportation… because in
many ways, AM is an underdeveloped country. Biden has a huge,
ambitious plan, bigger than that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR)
New Deal (1930s): ‘Build Back Better’.
o He also has a social programme for minimum wages etc. and the two
are linked.
Conservative Democrats liberal Democrats: “We are not going
to vote for your huge infrastructure plans if you do not also pass
the laws/budget for this social programme.” and vice versa.
Democrats in the Senate: 50/50 majority, meaning that all
the Democrats have to vote for these plans if they want to do
it without one Republican vote.
One Democrat representing West-Virginia (conservative
state) is refusing to go along with the plans because they
cost too much. One man in AM is holding everything up.
o If they cannot strike an agreement before 18 October and the debt
ceiling will not get lifted, and the US can no longer pay of its debt, it will
, 2021–2022 Master vertalen F. Albers
cause a major economic disaster & worldwide recession like we have
never seen before. It will put us back in the 1930s.
o Why does Biden link the social well-fare & infrastructure programme?
The problem is that the liberal fraction within the Democratic Party
(left-wing people within the party: Bernie Sanders, AOC…) is not going
to fund the infrastructure programme if the conservative fraction within
the Democratic Party is not willing to relief social problems by voting
for the social well-fare programme. The left-wing part of the party really
wants the two programmes: they see this as their one chance to make
the US a less cruel society for the disadvantaged.
This could backfire. If Biden manages to pass both programmes,
he will be a great president. But if he fails, he will be a failed
president. If the Republicans win one Senate seat next year, then
it is gridlock all over again and it will be over for Biden. It is a
make-or-break week for his presidency and the rest of the world.
All the financial replications of AM will default. Its debt would be a
disaster.
Problem: If AM cannot pay its debts back to the banks, everyone will be in trouble
because the banks will go down as well.
American Nationalism: Jill Lepore – “This America: The Case for the Nation” (2019)
Jill Lepore
- Historian
- Professor of History at Harvard University
- She wrote a book about American history: ‘These Truths’
o Reference to the Declaration of Independence: “Behold these truths to be self-
evident…”
o Remarkable hiatus: native Americans
“This America: The Case for the Nation” (2019) read the entire book, esp. pp. 21–51
- Inspired by the damage Trump inflicted
o Why could he do that? 7 million people voted for him.
- Criticism of the state of AM & of other historians ignoring the study of the nation & doing
ethnic studies
o “We should focus on the nation as a politically & culturally relevant entity”
o Refers to people like George Bancroft (historian who invents an American history going
all the way back to Columbus, whereas the history of the US starts in 1776)
- Succinct representation of the pros and cons of AM: What are its failures? What’s still
attracting people?
o Why are so many people dying to go to a country that will fool them?
- Country of immigrants (< Emma Lazarus’s poem on the Statue of Liberty)
o Asylum for the poor and weak
o Photos of last week at the Texan border: Haitians trying to cross the river; border
agents on horseback were ‘whipping’ them back into poverty & misery
o Myth/dream/ideals of AM Facts
Facts of AM
- Fourth-world country, built on genocide, antisemitism and slavery
- Class conflict
- Racism
- Homophobia
- Poverty
- People being outsidered
- Cruellest country in the west
- But: calls itself the greatest democracy in the world
, 2021–2022 Master vertalen F. Albers
- Strong myth needed to mediate between these facts & ideals = promise/dream of AM
facts of the US
o Underlying idea of the course
o Facts only: everything is present to launch a major revolution; people are being
betrayed by the facts
o But AM is an ideology, a religion, a myth and this is why so many people still want to
go live here
Example
Many years ago (1980s), a big polling club in AM did a survey of blue-collar attitudes towards
AM (the underbelly of AM: low incomes, multiple jobs). They asked questions in a certain order
and then rephrased them and drew conclusions that aren’t always correct. One of the first
questions was: “Do you think that your son can be president of the US one day?”. The rough
figures were that 80% said no. Time passes with more questions and towards the end they
ask, “Do you believe that in AM everyone has a shot at the American Dream?” 70–80% said
“Yes, that’s why we are here”. Stark contradiction between the promise/dream of AM and
the facts of the US. Cultural & political enigma
Example
Robbie Williams: Every American parent has this dream in their imagination that they hear
their child say: “Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, thank you for this Nobel Prize”. In less
dreamy moments, they actually hear “Do you want fries with that?”. Contradiction fact
ideals
That structure of thought comes back in Lepore’s book: criticising AM but at the end of the
book she wrote the chapter ‘A New Americanism’: Lepore = critical scholar, yet same logic in
her thinking: “We will reinvent AM, renew the dream and make AM great again.”
Rise of the white supremacists’ movement
- The Great Replacement Theory: “The white race will be replaced by other
races/ethnicities”
o Used to be the nightmare of a small American minority, but now it belongs to a greater
group. The theory is gaining traction in AM so much that Republican members of
Congress are now endorsing this theory.
o Terrorist attack with car, chanting “They will not replace us” Focus on Jews
There is an idea that Jews will replace white people
o One of Trump’s phrases: “There are decent people on both sides.”
He was legitimising and amplifying the rhetoric of white supremacists
He gave a speech last week in campaign outfit (!) and said that AM has to brace
itself to fend off ‘an invasion’ (= the Haitians in the river).
o You find this theory in other countries, political parties (e.g. Vlaams Belang) and in any
kind of cultural/ethnic group that feels threatened by the effects of globalisation
You can kind of understand when poor people think like this because for them it is
an actual threat if their jobs would be taken away. But in America it isn’t just poor
people who are embracing this ideology.
o Based on the idea: “AM is made by white people for white people”
If you want to join and are Black/Asian/…, you can only do so if you drop/ignore
whatever makes you different from white people So yes, AM is a country for
everybody, provided that you all embrace the same values and that you do not
do anything to question/challenge the centrality/superiority of white AM.
Eradicate other cultures/ethnicities
Example
- January 6 – The Capitol riots: “AM must be taken back, literally and maybe even violently,
from its foreign predators”
o That idea is gaining ground in the political world in the US
o Will sb with that strain of thought run for presidency next election?
