Political Exhaustion

Robert B. Charles made an insightful point in his post in the AMAC newsletter after the 2024 Presidential election, “Prepare for Emotional Exhaustion.” His main point was that after fighting long and hard on whichever team you play for, post-election catharsis is inevitable – exhaustion. I am certainly tired of the political ads that filled the airwaves for the last several months. They seem so pointless to me. I don’t know anyone who makes a voting decision based on advertising. Thoughtful people have better ways to examine the candidates and form an opinion. This was especially true this season because one party repeatedly made numerous false, defamatory accusations and the candidate was usually unable to articulate a cogent position on anything. I am particularly tired of that!

But it was Charles last point that really struck me. He wrote, “In this case, the election was brutal, arguably off-base, historically out of line with American politics.” Brutal: repeated impeachment threats, multiple lawsuits, and two assassination attempts against Donald Trump are definitely “off-base.” Like out of the ballpark off-base. He said they were “out of line with American politics,” but I have to disagree, sadly. Politics in this country has become increasingly partisan and divisive. Part of the reason for this, in my opinion, is the emotional factor being employed: scaring seniors with false threats to their Social Security, making pro-choice voters think abortion would be criminalized (as perhaps it should be), predicting huge increases in the cost of living all played on emotion rather than offering rational policy solutions.

I am aware that as far back as the election of George Washington, candidates tossed political firecrackers at one another. It seems that now they are using hand grenades and IED’s. When anyone calls their opponent Hitler for nothing worse than a policy disagreement, we have gone a step too far. When one party’s supporters attempt to assassinate their opponent, we have abandoned the American way of free expression of political ideas in the most egregious way. And when a candidate tells someone at her rally that the Christian message on a sign shows that the person is at the wrong rally, religious freedom is also being attacked, and a philosophical viewpoint is being proclaimed.

As Christians, we don’t have to insist on electing only fellow believers. What we must insist on is that any candidate we consider voting for cherishes freedom of religious expression. I have written previously that religious freedom is under attack by the progressives in this country. I have warned as Martin Niemöller did during WWII that if we don’t speak out against religious discrimination now, we will eventually forfeit the right to speak at all. There are already signs that the silencing process has begun.

It is now considered hate speech and punishable criminal behavior to use the wrong pronoun in reference to a person suffering from gender dysphoria in many public schools. Many employers threaten termination of persons who express religious opinions that are not appreciated by a fellow employee. The right to stand on a public sidewalk a respectable distance from an abortion clinic and protest the murder of the unborn is a chargeable offense. Wearing a tee shirt with a religious message to a public school will almost certainly get the student sent home, and discipline up to expulsion is not unusual. Need I continue?

The damage that the progressives are inflicting on the First Amendment is not their only attack. Second and Fourth Amendment rights are being trampled on a daily basis. Their explanation for these infringements reveals a fundamental difference in the Constitutional views of the two political parties. Most Democrats believe the Constitution must be continually revised to account for changes in cultural norms and expectations. Most Republican jurists hold the view that the document that governs us was written in such a way that all eventualities can be judged by its historical form. The way this works out is the Democrats are constantly reinventing meaning while the Republicans seek to understand the original meaning of the Founding Fathers.

The Bible teaches us to obey the law, submit to earthly authority, honor those to whom honor is due, and pay our taxes, etc. Despite all the naysayers, America was founded on Judea-Christian values. Those values are enshrined in our Constitution. Rewriting it or ignoring it when it restricts some newly discovered freedom (like freedom to murder innocents) is precisely what the progressives want. As Christians, we ought to be deeply concerned when the foundations of the Founding Fathers are being dynamited. I believe we elected a protector of religious freedom yesterday. If you were praying for that eventuality, don’t stop praying now. Like Robert B. Charles said, you may be exhausted, but I say you need to stay alert and keep praying because the roaring lion hasn’t been caged – he might be fettered, but his reach is still extensive. As the song says, “We are strongest when we are on our knees.”

Related posts: And Freedom for All; How to Boil a Frog; What Price Freedom?; What Does it Mean to be an American?; Strict Obedience