“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK.” When it was reported that former President Donald Trump said this while on the campaign trail in 2016, I thought that he was merely speaking out of arrogant idiocy. I had no idea that he could actually do much worse than that and retain much of his support. To my consternation, during the last four years, he has done considerably worse. Instead of shooting someone on 5th Avenue, he has shot our Democracy on Pennsylvania Avenue multiple times with apparent impunity from most of his supporters. My sincere hope is that the last wound inflicted on our great country on January 6, 2020 does not ultimately lead to the death of our Constitutional Democracy.
You might choose to criticize this blog for being overly pessimistic and hyperbolic, and I suppose that is fair. But please continue reading as I explain why a “glass half full guy” like me has such a negative outlook for our country. Reasonable arguments against the assertions I make in this article are:
1. On January 20, Joe Biden became president; and since he has committed to reunite the country, the threat to our democracy has been eliminated.
2. The former president was merely an aberration, and now that he no longer holds office, he is not a threat to the country.
While the above arguments may be plausible, they are also specious. Let me explain. Regarding the first item, as I listen to the current president, my sense is that he is a man who is sincerely interested in reuniting the country. But that is only my perception. To many Americans, he simply represents the “Socialist Left” and is not to be believed or trusted. In my view, the enemy of our souls have invested a great deal of time and effort into creating the political climate that exists in this country; and in this environment, the ancient proverb, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is quite apropos. Therefore, the former president retains support from many on the Political Right because he is perceived to have a common enemy – The Left.
Over the years, the enemy of our souls has managed to demonize the Political Left in the perception of many on the Right. But I believe that one of his most significant achievements has been his alienation of many on the Right to the mainstream media. My view is based on the premise that our perception depends in large part on the information we choose to process, and that is the essence of the problem. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I have seen a video of a former speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives exhorting his followers to stop watching the mainstream media. As one who thrives to have his reality grounded in facts, I found this advice shocking. But that video helped to explain why many on the Right still think Joe Biden’s election was fraught with fraud. Mainstream media outlets constantly report that no significant fraud occurred in the presidential election, but many on the Right no longer accept facts as presented by the mainstream media. Their perception has been informed exclusively by a media eco-system that consists of conservative media outlets, opinionated talk-show hosts, and dark corners of the internet that promulgate wild conspiracy theories. So, it has been relatively easy for them to accept the falsehood that the election was stolen as propagated by some of their national leaders as well as many local (political and religious) leaders. Since many political and religious leaders still refuse to admit that Joe Biden won the presidency fair and square, the worldview of these Americans will continue to be informed by a “false reality”. And from their perspective, what Joe Biden “did” is unforgivable.
I take issue with argument no. 2 above because the former president did not create the racism, xenophobia, and white nationalism that characterize the current political environment; he merely exploited these scourges on our society and placed them on front street. His influence is unlikely to go away since despite his incitement of the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol, many leaders of his party still appear to be afraid of the potential political consequences of antagonizing him. Furthermore, some members of his party appear to believe they can duplicate his success by emulating his duplicitous modus operandi.
So, what can we do to change the political climate in our country? That is a difficult question inasmuch as truth cannot be reconciled with a lie. You can’t win an argument logically with someone who has no regard for logic. One’s worldview is shaped over many years and is not likely to be changed overnight. With that being said, I think it is incumbent upon every American who truly loves this country to start by reflecting on where we are as indicated by recent events. Doing this should help us to appreciate our status as a democracy. It is my belief that too many Americans take our country for granted. Even those who support what happened on January 6th do not realize that had the coup d’état been successful, the country still would not have returned to what they wanted it to be inasmuch as once autocrats are firmly in place, they do not answer to anyone. Most of us don’t know what it is like to live in an authoritarian country like Russia, China, or North Korea. And we assume that no matter what occurs in Washington, DC, the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave will persevere, just as it always has. They don’t realize how close we came to a catastrophe of monumental proportions on January 6th. What if key Republican officials in states like Georgia had been willing to support the former president’s diabolical charade? I thank God for these patriots who cared more about the rule of law than their political affiliation, but they may not be there the next time. What happens then? What if the insurrectionists who chanted “Hang Mike Pence” and built a scaffold had been able to find the vice president? What if they had managed to encounter members of Congress such as Nancy Pelosi or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? If they were willing to brutalize and murder members of law enforcement who were merely trying to do their jobs, imagine what they would have done to these perceived enemies of their country.
We should know that the enemy of our souls is just as real as the God of our salvation; and he is just as evil as God is good. Also, ignoring this fact makes us more vulnerable to his influence. We should also know that he is a master at counterfeiting and deflecting, and as such, one of his specialties is creating falsehoods that imitate or deflect from the truth. I think a good example of this is the gaslighting that masqueraded as debate in Congress on January 6th, thereby perpetuating the lie that the election was stolen which was the root cause of the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. Another example of his cunningness can be found in the words of politicians such as the former president and the congress woman from Georgia who advised their supporters that if they did not fight to prevent the election from being stolen, they would lose their Democracy. Since they were attempting to incite their supporters to overturn the legitimate election results, their call to save our Democracy was in itself a call to end our Democracy.
We must learn to recognize the enemy in his myriad disguises and accept the fact that our war with him will not be over until God calls us home. We are all potentially susceptible to his influence. Let me emphasize this point as a prebuttal to those who would dismiss this article as the biased view of a partisan Democrat. It has been my experience that many among God’s people behave as if their status as children of God affords them an impenetrable shield that protects them from the advances of the enemy. I am not suggesting that the enemy can force us to act against our own interest because I believe our faith shields us against that. However, I am saying that while he can’t force us to act on his behalf, he can exploit the windows of opportunity created by our misperceptions of ourselves, of others, and of God. Therefore, it is imperative that we demonstrate a willingness to challenge our own beliefs to weed out those that are based on our misperceptions. Beliefs that are grounded in truth can surely withstand that kind of scrutiny.
Finally, God is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. And while we can choose to be Democrats or Republicans, we all should seek to be patriots. As I stated in a previous blog, a patriot is someone who loves his/her country and is ready to support and defend it. If our first loyalty continues to be to a political party, Democratic or Republican, or to an individual, given today’s political climate, what happened on January 6th is likely only the beginning of sorrows in this country. So, let us genuinely pray that God will open our eyes to the truth. And once he answers that prayer, we must be willing to challenge those who propagate lies that tear at the core of our Democracy, whether they do it from the Capitol, from state houses, from town halls, or even from our pulpits. Don’t we all owe that much to this great country that has given so much to so many?