Unity as Exclusion:

The Threat of Creedal Nationalism

I’ve read these three articles, and sitting with them, the question of what I’m being asked to call out becomes very clear. It’s not just about one politician's speech; it's about the underlying framework of that speech, a framework that is deeply familiar to anyone who has studied the mechanics of power and oppression. From my perspective as a European American, non-binary femme leftist who believes in abolition, what I see in Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt’s words is a modern, politically sanitized packaging of white supremacy culture. It’s a call to a very specific, exclusionary idea of order that is fundamentally opposed to a pro-humanity future.

The first article, from The Kansas City Star, is primarily a report on Schmitt’s speech at the National Conservatism Conference. It sets the stage by noting his rising profile and the content of his address, which focused heavily on a critique of the political left. The article quotes Schmitt directly, saying, “The left has given up on the American people… They’ve given up on the idea of America itself.” This is a foundational piece of his rhetoric. The second piece, from MSNBC, provides a similar overview but with a sharper critical lens, framing the NatCon movement as one that “often traffics in anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-democratic rhetoric.” It notes Schmitt’s alignment with this movement and his condemnation of what he calls “woke ideology.”

But it’s the third article, from The Daily Signal, that provides the full text of his speech, and it’s here that the ideology becomes unmistakable. Schmitt lays out a very particular vision. He says, “What is an American? It is not a matter of blood and soil. It is not a matter of race or ethnicity. It is a matter of belief. A belief in the rights of man etched into our founding documents. A belief in a Constitution that protects our God-given liberties. A belief in the idea that our rights come from God and nature, not from government.” On the surface, this sounds almost pluralistic, a creedal nationalism. But the devil, as always, is in the details, in the definitions, and in the enforcement of those definitions.When Schmitt says it’s a “belief in the rights of man etched into our founding documents,” he is invoking a specific, frozen interpretation of those documents. He is not inviting a critical discussion about which men had rights at the founding—enslaved Black men, indigenous men? He is not opening the floor to a conversation about the belief that those documents are living and must be reinterpreted to expand rights and inclusion. He is defining a singular, correct way to believe in America, and by extension, defining anyone who critiques that origin story or its ongoing consequences as outside the fold. He is creating an in-group and an out-group based on adherence to a state-sanctioned belief system. This is a classic feature of white supremacy culture: the right to comfort. The comfort of a simplified, heroic history must not be disturbed by the discomfort of complex, painful truths.

This connects directly to another quote from his speech: “We are a nation of laws, not a nation of men.” This phrase is a trope that sounds reasonable but is used to mask injustice. A nation of laws is only just if the laws themselves are just. From an abolitionist perspective, we see a nation where the laws have historically been, and often continue to be, tools of oppression—from slave codes to Black codes to Jim Crow to the modern carceral state that cages more people than any other nation on earth. To proclaim “we are a nation of laws” as a blanket defense of the status quo is to demand that we respect the authority of a system that has been weaponized against marginalized communities. It champions the value of order over the value of justice. This is white supremacy culture’s emphasis on objectivity and the belief there is only one right way—the way the current legal system dictates.

Furthermore, his entire argument is constructed around a rigid binary. He sets up a world of “us” versus “them,” where “they” are “the left,” “the woke,” and “the critics,” who have “given up on America.” This binary thinking is a core tenet of white supremacy culture. It eliminates nuance and prevents solidarity. It tells a story where there are only two sides: the patriotic believers and the un-American nihilists. This framing asks me, as a leftist, to condemn my own community and my own beliefs. It asks me to call out “the left” as a monolithic, dangerous enemy. But I don’t see an enemy. I see a vast and diverse movement of people who haven’t given up on America but who believe so deeply in its promised ideals of liberty and justice for all that we are willing to critique the nation fiercely for its failure to live up to them. Our belief is not in a static, mythological past, but in the possibility of a more liberated future.

So, what am I being asked to call out? I am being asked to call out a political project that dresses itself in the language of unity and belief while practicing exclusion and coercion. I am being asked to call out the manipulation of “freedom” and “liberty” to mean the freedom to dominate and the liberty to ignore inequality. Schmitt’s vision of America is one where your belonging is contingent on subscribing to a specific set of beliefs about God, government, and history—a set of beliefs that, in practice, has always centered the experience of white, Christian, cisgender men. His speech is a call to a national identity that is defensive, fearful, and rooted in a perceived loss of dominance rather than a hopeful gain of collective humanity.My call-out is different. I call out the fear of a changing world that underpins this rhetoric. I call out the insistence on a single, narrow story of America that erases the complexity of our past and the diversity of our present. I call out the use of “law and order” as a cudgel against movements for racial justice, transgender liberation, and economic equity. And I call out the absurdity of defining a pro-humanity stance—one that demands healthcare, housing, dignity, and safety for all people—as “giving up on America.” Believing that everyone deserves to thrive isn’t nihilism; it’s the deepest possible expression of hope. Abolitionism isn’t about tearing down society; it’s about imagining and building a society so just and so safe that systems of punitive control like prisons and police become obsolete. That is a belief in people, all people, that is far more radical and far more profound than a belief in a flag or a frozen interpretation of an 18th-century document.

My response to this rhetoric is not to accept its terms. I won’t be drafted into its binary war. Instead, I will continue to advocate for a world defined not by borders and beliefs used as tests for belonging, but by our shared humanity and our collective responsibility to care for one another. That is the future I’m calling in.

Source Material:

1. The Kansas City Star: Hancock, L. (2025). Sen. Eric Schmitt’s speech to conservatives was a call to arms. Here’s what he said. The Kansas City Star. Retrieved from: https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/article311950172.html

2. MSNBC: MSNBC Staff. (2025). Eric Schmitt's NatCon speech rallies national conservatives. MSNBC. Retrieved from: https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/eric-schmitt-natcon-speech-national-conservatism-rcna228874

3. The Daily Signal: Schmitt, E. (2025). Schmitt: What Is an American? The Daily Signal. Retrieved from: https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/09/02/schmitt-what-is-an-american/