"It is all about preserving our culture," said a friend of mine to me sometime last year around this time. Ultimately that lead her and a fair number of other friends of mine to vote for a candidate they despised at the time, but whom they have later come to accept/support/embrace with the mantra that they voted for a leader of their country, not for a pastor to lead their local congregation -- thus elevating the standing and importance of the local church and pastor above the standing and importance of the president of the United States. --- Yes, we are holding out for Pie in the Sky in the by and by.
That is their right, that is what democracy is all about. You choose the candidate you think is best suited, or perhaps least damaging. And then the one with the most votes (in the Electoral College) wins.
The nation chose its winner, and we moved on, or did we?
Those who found themselves ideologically compromised (weren't we all?) during this election are stuck in a perpetual cycle of anxiety that they cannot escape. It is impossible to escape the cycle because it continues endlessly in the news, and endlessly in discourses between people.
For those of us who just want to forget, stick our head in the sand for 4 years and hope it is over... well there is the Internet, TV, newspapers, people chatting about the latest. There is no escaping what happened or who is in charge.
For those of us who want to think it is not so bad, that he just needs to be given a chance, a break, a space in which to show what he can do, it is the same story -- there is a relentless onslaught of people chatter and news--of everything he says, does, tweets and of everything everyone thinks about what he says, does, and tweets, of what our allies think of the sayings, doings, and tweeting. None of this gives peace. None of it assures.
A recent op ed I read said that (slightly less than) half the voters that voted, voted for Trump because they were anxious about our culture. The other half of the voters that voted, plus a great deal of the country that did not vote, are NOW anxious precisely because he DID become president.
We live in the age of perpetual anxiety, no matter what side we are on.
In fact I have seen several friends of mine lose all faith in any traditionally reliable news sources, convinced that all politicians are corrupt and untrustworthy. Their news sources NOW consist in YouTube searches on pet news topics, leading them ever further astray in tangled webs of conspiracies. They are beginning to doubt well established historical truths, and live on the edge of reality.
I see other friends of mine, ardently defending indefensible character traits and actions that -- in any other person -- would have been seen as rude, misogynistic, racist, disrespectful, and immature... aspects of character and behavior that we should not tolerate in any adult, let alone a leader.
These friends grasp any explanations that will help him look good -- canvassing for him as if he were still running -- with the idea that... we need to give him a chance. Never mind the holes he digs himself into, never mind that in any other candidate, any ONE thing he says on ONE day would have lost other candidates their entire election.
It is maddening, and it is painful. It is divisive.
Politics in America has always been a difficult topic-- one that is not approached in polite society. -- We hold our political beliefs near and dear. We perceive them to define us deeply, and part of that is because we have woven religion and politics together in an unholy alliance that dates back to the Reagan 80s. For the past 40 years Evangelical votes have more or less been secured by the Republican Party on account of abortion and same sex marriage -types of issues. And so long as our vote is said to be God's vote, so long as our political issues are said to be God's issues, we are bound to vote one way and one way only.
This past year brings a serious challenge to God's univocal vote. It may not be such a stretch to vote as a Christian unified block when a relatively normal, fairly kind, not too corrupt male of reasonable integrity decides to run on a reasonable platform that reflects Christian values. However, when a man of perpetually shocking assertions (often contradictory), a man of questionable 'locker room talk' (if such it can be termed), a man whose 'truthful hyperbole' borders on racist and misogynist sentiments, whose near companions dance on the edges of white nationalism ... when such a man is put forth as the man that God's people should vote for because of key issues dealing with morality .... we are not only making a Faustian bargain, we are dancing on the edge of what it means to have Christian integrity.
It is maddening, it is painful. It is divisive.
And while we may in all truthfulness lose considerable sleep over what this person is doing to the country and to our foreign relations, what truly makes this situation painful on a daily basis is how this election has split churches 80% - 20% between those who did and did not vote for this phenomenon, between those who think it 'not so bad' and those who find it unbearably wrong to associate with such a man.
Maddening, painful, divisive.
