Being obsessed as I am with politics, my children are tragically aware that we are in a practically eternal election cycle. They know the names of the people running, they know my irascible feelings about each of them, and they even have a sketchy understanding of the process. But up until last night, we had managed to leave it there, with only the merest luncheon candidate bashing.
However, last night, in a fit of indecency, we actually turned on the tv and watched the returns, all of us together, while at the same time playing that excessively addictive online game Shoo Boo. And we stayed up till 10:30, which might as well have been midnight.
Watching the news and the speeches in this way is not a relaxing enterprise. It involves lots of shouting to be heard, and shouting for everyone to stop shouting. It means answering the same set of questions every thirty seconds. It means having to listen to childish choral renditions of “I’m a Barbie girl” every time the name Marco Rubio is spoken. It means trying to both understand and explain the idiosyncrasies of personality and policy.
‘Why do so many people love Trump?’ they kept asking. ‘Why is he winning everything?’ That’s the question of the entire world, dearies. It’s hard to know what to say without being unkind to YUGE sections of humanity.
My pat answer is that politics really isn’t about what you believe, much as we all wish it were, it’s about what you feel. It’s about the personal connection a person feels with another person. It’s about looking at someone and pouring a little bit of yourself into them, so that you are personally and emotionally invested. And this whole country is desperate for emotionally invested connection. Having believed and hoped that it could be had with Obama, all the disappointed are sure they will have it with Trump or Sanders.
And there stands Ted Cruz. He cannot be loved because he has an evangelical timber to his voice. He doesn’t sound like a preacher. He sounds like the Adult Ed Sunday School teacher in an old fashioned baptist church that hasn’t yet changed its name or removed it’s pews, one of those churches that still, gasp, has a choir. He is quirky and knowledgable. He still wears a suit to church. His hair is, well, it’s not weird, thank goodness. You expect him to work in an office somewhere and only appear on Sunday morning. The trouble is, nobody goes to Sunday school any more. Especially not adults. The cadence of his speech is from a bygone and rejected time. He really believes what he is saying.
I really think this election cycle is so instructive for the church. People who self identify as Christian seem like they are weary of looking for Jesus. Jesus might as well be just the god version of Obama. Everyone gave him a shot, but nobody knew who he was, and didn’t really want to know, even though the information is readily available. And when he didn’t deliver on the promised goods, it wasn’t too much of a stretch to look for some other kind of savior. The ‘evangelical’ voter is the American voter–looking for salvation from circumstances, looking for a single person who can deliver, not interested any more in the particulars of a belief system or an ideological world view.
So, it doesn’t matter about the hair, or the repetitive speech very thin on particulars. It doesn’t matter about changing from one plan to another. It doesn’t even matter that voters who were apparently Very Against the GOP “working together” or “crossing the aisle” now want someone who can “do great deals”. If it’s Trump in a closed room quietly bringing everyone together, that will be fine.
For my part, I understand how disappointing Jesus can be, and wanting to go and find some other savior. If we could just have a better economy and less terrorism, we will have all we desire. Whereas, what we really need to do is begin to be very sorry about the corporate evil that has sunk its roots down deep into our collective psychology. There is a lot of stuff very wrong with us that a better economy and a wall cannot begin to fix. Trump is a pretty good reflection of who we are, what we believe, and what we are wanting for the future.
For realz, as I said to my tired children, only Jesus can save us now.
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