Reflections on the Election

The voting public has spoken and will drink the libation they have poured, as will we all. MAGA is will not go down well.  The technique of the Big Lie that worked so well in the 1930s stunned the world with how easy it was to manipulate the course of a nation that had produced some of the most enlightened thinkers and leaders in western European history.  We were smugly confident that it could not happen in democratic America, but it nearly did then and appears to have succeeded in the 2024 election.

To write in this way invokes offended outrage from MAGA voters who respond with anger that it is exactly what they have been talking about – those uppity, better than thou elites who think they are the only ones who know and understand what’s really going on.  With the election behind them one would expect joyful celebration from MAGA leadership and those who voted for them, but what I heard on television this morning was more angry grievance from one and continued Big Lie assertions from another.   

The first was somebody angrily berating the media for being the mouthpiece of East Coast elites and Left Coast radicals who have looked down on, ignored, and trampled on the desires of real Americans for a better life. On the one hand it was a textbook case of projecting his own prejudices onto others who are, for the most part, ordinary people trying to get through life just like he is. On the other hand he implied a valid point.  The plans and programs of which he and others are in greatest need were announced, designed and implemented without engaging ordinary people in the process. No one likes being left out of decision making processes that affect them directly.  The result is rejection of the good in favor of greater ills out of nothing other than petulance on one side and unintended arrogance on the other. It’s an dynamic encouraged by decades of talk radio, podcasts, and cable news flooding the nation with misleading and false narratives pretending to be news.

The second was Representative Stefanik. She venomously spewed the litany of Big Lie propaganda about the state of the economy, job creation, inflation and the like. She was triumphant in the success of the Big Lie that voters accepted as truth and there was nothing “radical elites” could have done to stop it. Joseph Goebbels could not have said it better. She is in my opinion the more dangerous because she knows the Big Lie is a lie but she has embraced it to the core of her being. For what?  As the way to unchallengeable power?  I suspect so. 

Various surveys, most of which I get from Pew Research, suggest that ordinary MAGA voters dislike Trump’s language and behavior but like his policies.  They are sure he doesn’t mean the worst of what he says; it’s just political hyperbole.  I’ve always been confused by what policies such followers have in mind.  The most common appears to be his promise to fix the broken economy which, by every measure, is the most robust in fifty years.   I am disappointed that so many of the voting public have not considered the effects of mass deportations, tariff walls, and prosecution of political enemies.  Trump plans to fill the government with persons loyal to him, not the constitution, and demolish programs we have taken for granted as part of the American way of life. 

The next four years are likely to become even more dangerous to our future because it’s obvious that the president-elect is mentally and emotionally challenged.  He has a limited repertoire of grievances and grandiose promises superimposed on whatever question or subject is put before him. His lack of knowledge about or interest in the ordinary things of ordinary life is mind boggling. Nevertheless, he will have the power of the presidency backed by a staff of toadies who will do whatever he asks of them. If Vance, Musk, Bannon, and Miller are in the inner circle, they will manipulate Trump to their own advantage.

Two things sustain my hope for a better future for the nation.  One is my conviction in the essential goodness and integrity of the American public. They will emerge from under the shadow of false promises that has been cast over them.  The other is my unshakable faith that God created our island home for our good, and for us to prosper in it.  We have freedom to choose for better or worse, and when we err on the side of worse, God will provide the means to choose the better way.  In the meantime we will have to endure difficult times.  Christians are reminded that all authority on earth is accountable to God. The godly word of accountability flows from our Lord Jesus Christ, the prophets, and the wisdom of the church. We who follow Christ are obligated to place our highest loyalty with him, and to live as faithfully as we are able as citizens of this republican democracy. That may require us to act peacefully and speak out boldly when injustice, triumphs over righteousness, and cruelty triumphs over mercy. We are to respect the dignity of every human being, and work to do good, even for those we dislike and distrust.