America First vs. the American Dream

Straight White American Jesus

Axis Mundi Media: Bradley Onishi + Daniel Miller

Politics, News

4.7 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2020

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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. Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJC Order Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163 SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ron To Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi Venmo: @straightwhitejc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Straight White American Jesus. My name is Brad O'Nishi, Associate Professor, Religious Studies at Skidmore College, and I am joined today by an incredible scholar and writer and that is Professor Sarah Churchwell.
0:25.0	Professor Churchwell is Professor of American Literature and chair of
0:28.8	public understanding of the humanities at the School of Advanced Study,
0:32.1	University of London. She's the author of Advanced Study, University of London.
0:33.0	She's the author of Careless People, Murder, Mayhem,
0:36.0	and the Invention of the Great Gatsby,
0:38.0	which is an incredible title.
0:40.0	The Many Lives, and also the Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe.
0:44.0	She's also written widely in many outlets,
0:47.7	including The Guardian, New Statesman Financial Times, Times Literary
0:52.4	Supplement, excuse me.
0:54.0	New York Times Book Review
0:56.0	and just recently the New York Review of Books.
0:59.0	And she also comments regularly
1:01.0	on arts, culture, and politics for television and radio.
1:04.5	So Professor Churchwell, thank you for joining me all the way from London.
1:07.9	I really appreciate it.
1:08.9	Thanks so much for having me.
1:10.9	Well, we are here today to talk about your most recent book and
1:14.8	that book is Behold America, The Entangled History of America First and the
1:19.0	American Dream and I don't usually do this but I 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.
1:34.0	Here's what it says.
	...

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