The American Redemption Narrative Is a Toxic Myth
Unhinged optimism isn’t healthy.
Is there anything more American than a redemption narrative — the idea that deep down, we know we’re right? That the right guy, the good guy, our guy, always wins in the end if you wait around or watch for long enough?
During election season, this belief becomes something like an addiction, with the New York Times needles and the Nates (Silver and Cohn, that is) serving as our dealers — offering up hope, horror, tweets, and forecasts long after our twitching eyeballs beg us to look away.
As things stand right now, with Joe Biden looking victorious, one iteration of the redemption narrative may well take hold: “Ah, yes, America is America. We knew she would pull through. Let’s get back to being American!”
After all, the nation itself was founded on this very premise, a kind of unhinged optimism that allows its core contradictions — that all men are created equal, except for, well, a huge swath of the populace — to exist alongside the unsubstantiated conviction that it is “the greatest country in the world.” We redeem America for its myriad injustices every time we perpetuate the myth of its greatness.
This makes its way into our personal psyches, too. We believe the person who works the hardest — to the…
