A Time to Reflect

An End of an Era?

Normally, Sunday mornings are reserved for our favorite Pastor and his brand of mega-church madness, but with the election so near, I decided to give him a break from preaching for a few weeks. Instead, reflecting on the meaningfulness of the election would serve us all better. As tired and wanting of a quick end to this race, people also seem reticent to show too much hope (especially the media) to make predictions. A feeling of hexing the outcome by voicing the opinion of the Presidency seems to consume everyone, including myself. Though I believe Kamala Harris will prevail, and not as closely as most, I still feel a nagging pessimism left over from 2016, and the failed insurrection of 2020. Though I am hopeful that Kamala Harris will usher in a new era of prosperity and unity, the negativity felt for this election stems more from the reality of the last eight years: a stark reminder of the deep-rooted hate that waited so long to become animated again in the MAGA movement.

In 2016, over Thanksgiving dinner, when asked about Trump, I responded, “Trump might be the necessary evil to put the nail in the Republican coffin.” I regretted that statement because time would prove just how damaging that nail would be to the country. Having been raised by conservatives, it took me a long time to realize the damage inflicted by their ideology, and even longer to understand how my parents were less to blame than their indoctrination by this Christo-political fascism.

Much of the violence I experienced in my life was inflicted by supposedly good Christians, who gas-lighted like good Republicans by making me feel that everything bad was my fault. Many things were my fault and some relationships may have been saved had I been less hostile or less Christian about rejecting those who I elevated myself above in a false sense of superiority.

Conservatism taught me arrogance and violence as a virtue because winners take all and everyone else is just losers. When I considered myself a Christian, I felt even more entitled to everything but voiced the expected exhortations of humbleness and gratitude because that is the standard of conservative hypocrisy. What I learned from Christians/conservatives was the persona of Trump: the unapologetic, hard-spoken, man who doesn’t care about what you want or what you believe because winning — my winning — is everything.

It would take a lot of time, hurting people, failing, and hurting myself to fully grasp that conservatism isn’t a political ideology. It is not a religious identity or cultural worldview woven with Christianity.

It is a thief.

Christianity stole from me everything at one time or another because it stole my ability to think rationally. It stole empathy and love from those around me and from me. I might have kept many friends and probably family had I just played the game and pretended to be the little Trump my parents and others wanted me to be. But I couldn’t, not because I was noble or wise, but because the conservative greed instilled in me outstripped even the desire to maintain those relations. They could not provide me with what I wanted, which I thought was to be a rich entrepreneur, like the Trump. Thankfully, the conservative Christian dream was not in the cards because that charlatan doesn’t tell you the dream is luck dependent, and failure teaches you that you have been conned.

Wanting an trying to be a Trump affirmed for me everything I grew to believe about Christians when Trump become the President, giving license to all those good Christian conservatives to lie, to continue to lie: scratching and begging for their bit of power. All those hate-filled racists and violent people poured out of the shadows to be the good Christians. You would have to believe the majority of Christians, who are the ones voting for him, are either mentally deficient or gullible on a grand scale, or, as I believe, they are robbed of their senses by a fraud telling them they can be the next Trump.

Having experienced this fraud, and having been the victim of it, inspires no sense of relief that even if Kamala Harris wins, this would mean there is a solution near. Half of this country, the majority of Christians, think conservatism is great idea and that Trump has the answers.

That is a frightening thought.

Trump proves everything I believe about Christianity and conservatism, but there is no joy in that evidence. Perhaps a larger victory in the election for the Vice President will provide hope of things finally changing for the better. For now, I believe we need to consider the weight of this election and what it means not just for us as individuals but for everyone.