The Bible as Mirror: Comment and Apology

Over the past months, since the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the USA, I have combed the Bible for figures and ideas that reminded me of the new president, especially with regard to his deficiencies, which I find obvious and myriad. I discovered that it was rather like shooting fish in a barrel to find analogous persons and books—from the couple in the Garden of Eden to Jephthah to Reheboam to the book of Revelation. As I stated in my last article, this exercise, that went on longer than I first imagined, served me as a sort of catharsis for my anger, outrage, and sadness at an election that I thought was a travesty, elevating to the office a man uniquely and clearly unqualified to serve. I still strongly feel that way, as each day brings new evidence of his singular lack of qualifications for the weighty mantle he has assumed.

With relish and delight I attacked Trump in as clear and direct a way as I could, slicing in to his hubris, his hypocrisy, and his narcissism. Yet, during all this savage attack, these attempts to skewer and eviscerate, I slowly lost sight of an important reality: my attacks have merely added to the anger and vituperative replies that I have received to my posts. I am frankly horrified by the fury and rage that some of my responders have demonstrated. I suppose I ought not be surprised, since face-book threads have long shown appallingly rage-filled commentary and thoroughly out of control spleen. Still, when what I have written has spawned such ire, I have begun to realize that I am as much of the problem of lack of empathy in our country as those who hate what I have said.

I repeat: I have no intention of embracing Donald Trump’s ridiculous agenda: gutting environmental controls and concern based on a complete lack of scientific knowledge; pushing absurd tax policies that favor the vastly wealthy at the expense of the poor; a health care plan that promises to throw millions off their insurance plans while bloating the national debt untold trillions of dollars; expanding the military budget while gutting the National Endowment for the Arts, Planned Parenthood, National Public Radio, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and other organizations that provide beauty and hope for millions; attempting to deport and deny entry to thousands of immigrants who want only to find the freedom we cherish and to add their uniqueness to the rich salad that makes the USA what it is and can be. But I think the way to combat such insidious and ruinous goals is not personally to attack Trump unflinchingly but to speak and act out of deep concern and care for those things I support.

I have long given money to the Natural Resources Defense Fund that uses legal tactics to defend all aspects of the environment, and to the Sierra Club, whose 100+-year existence has brought attention to issues of the environment. I have also supported NPR, since it gives me grand pleasures, both musically and in the matter of respected news reporting. And I have supported PBS, because all members of our family, now three generations, have been impacted incalculably by its programming over the entire span of its existence. In those ways, and in my constant involvement with politics, both in terms of knowledge and actual engagement, I have striven to make a difference in the world I have been given by the God I worship and love.

Donald Trump is the “current occupant of the White House,” as an acquaintance of mine likes to put it; in other words, his time there will end. But the issues that all of us face, especially the continuous and increasing degradation of the cosmos (“There is no planet B,” as it has been said), will not end with the close of Trump’s presidency. So, I apologize for the ways I have added to the so-called “dialogue” we have been pursuing as a country. I do not apologize for resisting the policies of Donald Trump in every way I can.

It is deliciously pleasant to write in white-hot rage, choosing just the right words to goad and poke and enrage those who differ. I know that fact all too well. But now I vow to write rather differently when it comes to those with whom I disagree. I want to make a positive and helpful contribution to our currently poisonous discussions of issues, and with the help of the merciful God, who loves and cares for us all, I hope to be able to do just that.