Reflection on America as religious nation on the occasion of the Barrett nomination

Comment published on New York Times blog in response to Times article, “Trump announces Barrett as Supreme Court nominee, describing her as heir to Scalia,” September 26, 2020:

With this court appointment, we are again reminded that much of America's political leadership considers this a religious country. Both our recent political conventions--the Democrats self-outdoing--were soaked in discourse referencing both religious and secular themes in pious metaphors. An observer could easily get the impression that what Americans mostly do in election seasons is ask themselves not which candidates they prefer, but what the chosen hero thinks and wants of us. Our elections are about who we are as a people, a consensus identity politics. Let there be no doubt: 'America' as a collective person means honor, loyalty, sacrifice, heroism--and slavery's legacy: obedience. Piety, not generosity; when we contemplate how we are governed, it is as if we were posing for ourselves loyalty oaths and tests.

Something in this is both cause and consequence of the fact that 'religion' here has long mainly been a province of the right. Though each group has a left, right, and center, except white evangelicalism. Which has largely set the agenda. Abortion is the key issue despite the liberal 'rights' theme its rhetoric strategically hijacks. The focus is obedience, discipline, the patriarchal family. Obey the boss. Workers and mothers, do your job. Catholics are asked to oppose abortion, Jews to favor militarism, Protestants to gain a master. Old pieties sell better than experimental thinking, with Christ and Prophets strangely silent.