US Exceptionalism in the Regulation of Religion

This chapter considers the remarkable diversity of American religion from the beginning: the constitutionalizing of religion, the reasons for delayed implementation of the First Amendment religion clauses, the evolution of free exercise and establishment clause doctrine, and the ongoing difficulty of defining religion for US law. What makes US regulation of religion stand out among national legal orders is the dual commitment to federalism and to disestablishment. With a low ‘statism’ and a strong commitment to equality—theological, as well as political—academic expertise has little purchase on the national mind. Religion is what the people say it is. That is a very old story in the US.

Conclusion: History and Hollywood, Mashed-Up

The conclusion pulls into focus the interplay of aspirations about democratizing media and realities of democratizing the United States as they coalesce on race and the presidency by focusing on the viral video Barackula: The Musical (2008) and theatrical feature Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012). In them, US presidents or future-presidents are represented as vampire hunters and enduring icons of US exceptionalism. Amateur and astroturfed grassroots internet memes demonize the first and only nonwhite president of the United States by employing the animalistic and dehumanizing iconography of Nosferatu, thus signaling afterlives of race in self-authorized acts of racism that can now be distributed via social media to larger audiences than classical Hollywood ever dared imagine.