Tag Archives: US political situation

On Being [seen as] Wrong

Today someone I love told me they were sorry I am wrong with regard to my left-leaning political views. Not surprising, this person is a far-right conservative. Also not surprising is the only news they get is conservative talk radio, and The National News Desk, which is, as reported by Media Bias / Fact Check , a right leaning source which uses “loaded words to favor conservative causes.” Up until a couple years ago, this person watched only Fox News, but recently they have lost the ability to access that at home.

I am a Christian. A Christ-follower. A flawed human who believes Jesus is real and his teachings are still relevant. In the past ten years, since the first term of the current president, I, like many others, have undergone some sharp and profound changes to my faith. Some of the transformation has been intentional; much of it has been incidental. At this point, I am actively working on understanding better what I believe. Some people are calling this a deconstruction of their faith; for me it is reconstruction. I no longer believe all of the Old Testament literally, the way my fundamentalist upbringing taught me to; much of it is, for me, important as an historical record, and taken as whole — Torah, the prophetic books, the psalms — useful for teaching and learning about human nature and about God, and as my pastor recently said, should be read through the lens of Jesus and his teachings. One thing is certain: I still believe in Christ. Perhaps even more than before, because my faith is less discordant; there is less dissonance and more harmonious consistency.

Jesus teaches me to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. These are the first and second commandments, according to him, with none greater than these two. As best I can, I base everything I do on these two commandments. The ten Old Testament commandments are comprised in these two, and of course I try to live according to those, as well. I am not perfect; if I were, there would be no need for Jesus! I am, however, intentional in my choices and focused on living as consistently as possible according to his teachings.

With all that in mind, I find it appalling that some Christians, like the aforementioned person, would continue to support this administration. In most cases, I believe they do so because, like that person, they have limited their news intake to conservative outlets or none at all, and they simply take the word of their misguided so-called Christian leaders at face value. Honestly; almost all the Christians I know who continue to support the US Government as it currently stands fall into this category. It makes me really angry with them because there is better information out there but as another deeply loved person in my life recently asserted, the other outlets “all have Trump Derangement Syndrome” so they don’t ever consume any other news sources.

Some other Christians who continue to support this administration lack education and critical thinking skills. They are not to be blamed; the system has failed them. They have not learned to recognize false or biased reporting, and they don’t understand the inconsistencies in their faith and what the Cabinet and the GOP are allowing to happen. These are “the poorly educated” the president recently professed his love for; he needs them as a voting bloc, and they don’t even know they vote against their own interests.

Yet others simply don’t engage at all with the news, and as long as life doesn’t get too bad for them personally, they don’t pay attention to what is happening. These are people who are selfish and egocentric, and they probably should not be calling themselves Christians at all because this type of disengagement with the world is anti-Christian and is rooted in an anti-Christian world view. Jesus demands we engage with the world in love: do no harm to a neighbor, be a servant to others, call out corruption, help the poor and oppressed, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and visit the prisoner. It does cost something to follow Christ; burying our heads in the sand is not an option. Jesus did not leave that as a possibility.

Of course there are other groups who still support this administration. The power-hungry and greedy for riches who are profiting one way or another off the policies and activities probably is a group unto itself. Another are the blatant racists who are using this presidency as an excuse for their hatred of others. I don’t happen to think these groups are Christian at all. They are smart enough to know what evils are being done and they don’t care or they celebrate them. This is the antithesis of Christ’s teachings, so if they think they are Christians, I would surmise that they are fooling themselves. I suppose they pay lip-service to being Christians but they know perfectly well they are not. They are serving self, not Christ, not others.

I think if you know, as I and many others do, of some of the evils being committed in our name and with our tax dollars, unless you are a sociopath, you simply don’t support the current government, and if you really believe what Christ taught, you are acting within the limits of the law to change it. That’s why the No-Kings movement has gained so much ground; these are the people who are looking around at what is happening and declaring it wrong. These are the ones who are calling our congressmen and women, marching in the streets, boycotting Amazon and other groups, and helping our persecuted neighbors when we can.

What hurts most about this is that so many of these people are not Christians! They are just trying to live by what they would call the Golden Rule , which unbeknownst to many is straight out of Jesus’ teachings: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In applying this important teaching of Christ, non-Christians are behaving with greater morality and love than a lot of Christians are currently doing! This is a grave disappointment, and a black mark on Christianity, when non-believers follow the teachings of Christ better than believers do.

It is hard for me, as it is for many others, to accept that our beloved Christian family members and friends see us as misguided or wrong. We want those we love to respect us and what we believe. Unfortunately, it is too much to ask of them; they have allowed something or someone to interfere with the truth in their lives, and they don’t see what we see. I can still love them; I refuse to let this evil regime to take them from my heart. But we must accept that we are not the ones who are wrong in this; we are choosing Christ over everything else: blind guides, misguided leaders, biased reporting, our own biases, our bank accounts…

I will choose Christ. I will keep choosing Christ. Shoulder to shoulder with other believers and with non-believers, I will stand for what is right.

Do unto others...

A Letter to the World, Part 1

Dear World,

Many of my fellow Americans and I are mortified and deeply sorry for what is happening right now. We know the US government is destabilizing the rest of the world, as well as our own country, and if we could change it, we certainly would. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to change when the guardrails that we counted on for 250 years have been largely demolished by the “move fast and break things” principle that characterized the first several months of the current regime. We still have hope, but ordinary Americans are almost powerless. Outside of protesting, calling and writing our congressmen, and voting when we can, we can’t do much to change things.

I do want to explain some things to those of you who may think, with good reason, that the run of the mill American has lost his mind. I’d like to help clarify how we managed to elect for a second time a convicted felon, someone who stole classified documents and stored them in a bathroom, someone who was even then suspected of sexually abusing children. It seems so impossibly stupid, and obviously it is, but there are reasons and events that led us here. I’m still trying to understand some of the statistics, so I’ll save most of those for part 2, but here is what I think is most significant. And please understand, I don’t have expertise in these areas; I am speaking from the point of view of someone who has observed, read, and watched, and who is appalled by the current situation.

First, our country is steeped in racism and misogyny. The election and reelection of Barack Obama ignited the ire and the contempt of overt racists, as well as quiet ones, those who don’t think of themselves as racist but for whom a black person could only be elected because “of course, 100% of black voters and far left liberals turned out to vote for him.” Obama’s election and subsequent mostly successful presidency was unforgivable for the white racist element, and this is evident in the conservative embrace of the most racist president in modern history, who has inspired and emboldened the worst among us. The idea that a black WOMAN could be elected is so far beyond the pale for this relatively large group of people that they could never vote for her, and the issue with Harris’ gender extended even to minority groups. So deep runs the racism and misogyny that of the registered voters who actually turned up and voted, only 47% of white WOMEN voted for her, choosing a misogynistic white man over a woman of color of their own gender. Only 39% of white men voted for her, only 48% of Hispanic men, and only 52% of Hispanic women. Add to that the fact that fully 21% of male black voters voted for Trump, and you simply have to conclude that a woman cannot be elected to the presidency in this country at this time. (Statistics taken from Pew Research.)

Second, right wing media has brainwashed many Americans. Until the 1980’s, the Federal Communications Commission operated under what is known as the Fairness Doctrine. It required that in any news broadcast, when a controversial topic was addressed, both sides of the argument had to be presented. If you heard the positive argument, you would also hear the negative. This is a simplified explanation of the doctrine that actually encompassed several rules which together ensured that American media was not politically biased, or at least not very much so, and that we heard the truth of what was happening in the world. In 1985, Ronald Reagan’s commitment to deregulation wherever possible created an environment where the Fairness Doctrine was denigrated and said to no longer be serving the public interest. The eventual abandonment of the Fairness Doctrine opened the door to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and the like. As a result, we now have whole media conglomerates that cater to the far right. In the past 28 years of Fox News, it has become a propaganda machine dedicated to disseminating far right, even extremist, policies, often marketing outright lies. The beautiful women and provocative men who call themselves journalists and serve as talking heads for the company are powerful draws for those among us who are less likely to tune in the news to be informed, and more likely to watch for the entertainment value. At present, most Americans ONLY watch, listen to, or read news that is likely to agree with their political leanings, and we distrust the media outlets on “the other side”. We are now the most divided nation I have ever seen. Even the Flemish and Walloon Belgians are more united. (To read more about the impact the loss of the Fairness Doctrine has had on the USA, click here.)

Lastly, shame on the previous administration for a couple of important things. First, for not passing a law forbidding a convicted felon from running. And second, for not exposing everything in the Epstein scandal during those four years. As much as I appreciate Biden for some of the things he accomplished, these two non-events led us to this situation. I would also add his tardiness in deciding not to run for reelection, but it seems a non-issue based on the misogyny noted above, UNLESS there had been a primary, where a different, less FEMININE (ahem!) candidate might have presented himself.

So World, please forgive the Americans you run across. There are so many of us, without question a majority of us, who do not support what our current federal government is doing. Those of us who travel, whom you might meet in your countries, are even less likely to support the administration, and almost certainly didn’t vote for the current president.

Part two will follow as soon as I can digest the statistics.

For now, just we are SO SORRY.