How Do You Not See It?

I am a reluctant progressive. I consider myself a pretty independent person in that I don’t spend my time looking for reasons to sacrifice my thought process to the blood gods of group dynamics and I think that this refusal allows me to see things a little more clearly, but most people don’t like that because it sounds cynical, unpleasant and sarcastic.

Living in the south, I work and surround myself with people who proclaim to be (and in many cases truly are) compassionate, loving people who follow Christ in a deeply personal way. Christianity has not always been so pleasant, peaceful and Pollyanna, but those whom I know and love work hard to be beacons of light and kindness.

However, these very same people, in alarmingly increasing frequency, have chosen to blindly support a divisive, merciless man who eerily resembles the Roman Emperor Caligula, a ruler known by history for his viciousness, narcissism, extravagance and perversion. Fittingly, Caligula also spent his time on large, expensive public works projects to display his power and sought to increase his unconstrained control as executive.

Where do I begin?

His words are despicable; he mocks immigrants and the disabled, disparages the poor and minorities, vilifies intelligence and attacks families of fallen soldiers, even going so far as to say that he does not respect those who have been captured. He insults his competitors wives, excoriates anyone who dares disagree, and even takes aim at the dead. His corrosive, frightened, xenophobic tirades litter the internet as he struts and frets his hour on the stage.

His actions would get any one of us punched in the face. By his own admission he has alienated our allies, casually bragged about sexually assaulting women, befriended despots and authoritarian strongmen, incited racist and ultra-nationalist behaviors, invited our enemies to interfere in our political and legislative process on his behalf, and has openly disowned the parade of eager officials who find themselves pledging loyalty to him, desperate to hitch their wagon to him so that they too can betray their conscience for a taste of unaccountable ravenous impunity. The party of law and order, everyone.

His policies remind people that cruelty itself can be a policy, so long as you make it about grievances and hatred.

“Why am I doing this? Because screw you. That’s why”.

Revenge is no way to run a country.

The only weakness to his menace is that it is tempered by his sheer ignorance and buffoonery. He is cartoonishly ineffective at accomplishing his goals, thwarted often at times by his own administration and appointees as they realize that they cannot run the fire department and remain the arsonist.

Do any of you care to dispute anything I’ve said? Have I said anything false? How does this speak of you, should you support this malice?

There are many amongst you who profess to love Christ, who loudly proclaim that they spend their days in the service of the Lord, and yet believe that it is their right to approve or disapprove of people not like them, and that it is through their permission alone that others be allowed to live their lives free from harassment or discrimination. They have replaced the mandate of peace, mercy and unconditional love with a new tablet of commandments, commandments bent on judgement, castigation, and willful ignorance. They have anointed themselves as the omnipotent and have cast aside their savior. The golden calf rises and seeks to usurp Yahweh once again, championed by unwitting apostates.

“America is being taken advantage of”, they say. “Minorities, Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, liberals and people not like us are here to destroy the country.”

This apostasy has culminated in the blind adherence of righting imaginary wrongs, nameless fears propagated by a man who claimed that he had the answers so many were looking for, and that winning at all costs was the only path to salvation, no matter the means or methods. If the government could not be ran and construed as he pleased, he promised to destroy it. To the delight and cheers of millions, he claimed he would rule or ruin in all events. Identity in this new mindset replaced reality, and this identity is now so ingrained into the lives of so many that extrication from it requires complete renouncement, an action feared for its possibility of excommunication from the group protected by the law, yet not bound to it.

And yet, even though so many privately admit that this has gone too far, that the entire affair has become distasteful and too malignant for them, they say nothing publicly and do nothing to push back against the worst voices, which have now become the loudest.

“He’s made of wood, so he must be one of us and favor us”, the trees say as they trudge to the voting booth and cast their support for the axe.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:21–23, New International Version)

I am positive that if Jesus returned tomorrow he would waste no time slapping the taste out of that man’s mouth and shaming the lot of you for ever backing a morally-bottomless money-changer who has lost every ounce of the humanity you so richly profess to love and pray for. And for what? Authority? A single issue, perhaps? Supremacy?

Argue the whole “but but but the Democrats!” line all day, at this point the decision to defend anything that man does or says places you further from the cup of Christ and you know it. You’re all just too afraid to speak up.

Depart from me, for I do not know you. (Luke 13:27)