In polite society we treat elections as an opportunity to advance our self-interest or express policy preferences, about which reasonable people can disagree. And most of the time that may be true and we’re left to choose between various imperfect options, but in this era I think the dwindling tribe of values voters has it right: Voting is a choice with moral implications, with clear right and wrong answers, for which we will one day face judgment. Of course I’m going to judge you for how you voted in November – I’m a very judgy person. But it’s not my judgment you need to worry about.
Over the last decade, we’ve learned that some things are true, and some are not. We have learned that 2016 was not a “Flight 93 election.” At the time, some conservatives thought Democrats coming to power would spell doom for the United States. But they were wrong. Democrats were elected in 2020 and for the next four years, things were basically fine. The pandemic subsided, the economy recovered, and life went on.
Around the same time, other people branded Donald Trump a threat to democracy. And those people were proven correct. After losing the 2020 election, he plotted to retain power, up to and including using violence to prevent a peaceful transition of power.
Despite knowing all that, you made the choice to return him – a convicted felon and past insurrectionist – to office. What do we call it when you know something is wrong, but you choose to do it anyway?
We’ve also learned some things in the last four weeks, beginning with Trump’s pardon of the violent insurrectionists who tried to subvert the election on his behalf. The people who not long ago confidently assured us that Trump wouldn’t actually do the things he had promised to do were wrong. The people who warned against re-electing him have had their fears justified.
The situation we find ourselves in today reminds me of a stake trek activity I went on a few years ago. (Not this trek, but a more recent experience.) The second day was much hotter than expected, so I made sure our group had extra water, but after several miles on a hilly trail, the handcart’s bouncing had combined with the water container’s leaking lid to leave us nearly out of water, along with the rest of the handcart groups, as the temperatures rose past 100 F. Suddenly my confidence that everything would be okay dropped, from 99.99% to 99%, to 90%. The wagon master turned us around and we regained contact with the supply truck and we filled up on water, but a 10% chance of catastrophe is terrible odds, it turns out.
So here we are today, playing the odds.
Maybe one of these times, an on-again-off-again tariff bluff will actually happen and set off an economic disaster.
Maybe an edgy ha-ha-let’s-seize-Greenland stunt will spill over into actual violence, leaving a moral stain on us that will haunt us for the rest of our lives.
Maybe one of the incompetents or arsonists now in charge of various government functions will fail to take action, or do something destructive, at a critical moment.
Maybe the people currently taking a lawless approach to government spending will take similarly lawless action with some other essential function of democracy.
Mayben not! Maybe everything will be okay. But a 10% chance of suffering irreparable harm turns out to be terrible odds. After four bad weeks, we have to be lucky for four more years, but this time with worse people running the show than last time.
And last time we didn’t stay lucky. If you’re old enough to remember, the first Trump administration was awful. Then Covid hit, and the response to the pandemic was chaotic and polarizing when we needed it to be organized and cohesive. Over a million Americans died, and we were left on our own to figure out who could be trusted, and what steps were useful, and which information was accurate.
Of course I worry about all the ways I’m exposed to political turbulence: What happens if Pell grants don’t get issued, or Medicaid no longer pays for my mother-in-law’s assisted living, or the ACA gets defunded, and several other things that may not happen, although some people now in charge of our government very much want to make them happen.
But I also worry about what this might do to you. The cognitive pathways that make it possible to say that Trump was the better choice after all were alarming enough back in November, corrosive by the inauguration, and toxic today. “Yeah Trump is bad, but at least”—don’t finish the sentence. There is no way to make that argument without cankering your soul. As the catastrophe becomes more difficult to deny, the cost of denying it will steadily increase, to embracing more caustic levels of resentment and denying more self-evident truths. Trump lost the 2020 election, vaccines are effective, immigration is healthy for our country, and the American system of liberal democracy with a free market subject to regulation is good and doesn’t need to be burned down. The vicarious thrill of seeing vengeance wrought on your political opponents will not make you happy.
The concept of sin is helpful here because it’s embedded in a plan for redemption. Making the wrong choice despite our best efforts happens; it’s the human condition. Instead of compounding our errors, we can recognize a mistake, change course, repent, and rely on the Savior to pay the price for our folly – as long as we don’t put ourselves in a place beyond repentance by refusing to recognize our error. I’m not expecting an apology or anything like it. As I watch things burn down in weeks that this country spent a century building, I’ve got my own mistakes and failures to deal with. But I hope that you will be honest with yourself.
So right now, things are bad. What it means this week is that some people have already had to pick a hill for their careers to die on. I don’t know what it will mean next week, or next month, or next year. You should think carefully in advance about what battles aren’t worth fighting, and what hills you’re committed to defending, before you draw the wrong line in the sand, or find that an ill-chosen retreat leaves you with lasting shame.
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