by David Robertson, Christian Today (Image: Unsplash)
Our media and the Twitterati are obsessed with the US elections. Given the hold that US media, big tech and academia have on the Western world this is hardly surprising. And it is always great theatre and melodrama. But are they as important as we are continually told? Is it really the end of the world or the redawn of paradise?
Let’s look at this as if we were looking through a telescope. When you look at something really close then you get the impression that it is far bigger than it really is. In the eyes of your lens, it is all that you see. But adjust your telescope and move out to a greater distance and suddenly the whole perspective changes. Let’s try looking at the US elections up close, at a distance, and from an eternal perspective.
Up close
This election was a shellacking for the Republicans and the MAGA movement. Losing control of both the House and the Senate means that Donald Trump’s presidency will wind on as a typical lame duck presidency. But in the short term there is very little that will change – apart from a lot of media excitement. Things will continue as before. Although given the alliance of progressives with Islamists and the fact that some of their candidates were elected, it is likely that the Democrats will move even further left.
President Trump urged people to vote as if he were on the ballot. I think they did. But then he commented on the results “I wasn’t on the ballot. If I had been, I would’ve won with a landslide.” The hubris, narcissism and arrogance will continue. Not least because he tends to govern by executive order, and he will still have that power for the next two years. He still has the opportunity to do a great deal of good – and a great deal of harm. Time alone will tell.
The polling makes clear that it was the economy (especially gas prices) and the war in Iran which caused the defeat. But that does not stop politicians, commentators and clergy on both sides of the Atlantic making hyperbolic moralistic grandiose claims. Many of whom have tweeted out meaningless memes such as ‘voters have rejected the politics of cruelty…we have voted for love and hope not hate and division’ whilst at the same time, without a trace of self-awareness or irony, spewing hatred and division against those they disagree with.
Up close all I see is the same hyperbole, moralism, hatred and self-righteousness – meet the new boss – same as the old boss.