Trump’s presidency is worse than any of us ever imagined, and we already knew it would be bad when he got elected for the second time.
I don’t need to name the ways he is a disaster and danger to the country. I will simply say that based on his words and actions, I believe Donald Trump is a mentally disturbed person who should be in jail instead of the White House.
If you’re like me, you would also like to scream at every person who voted for him, telling them, “Look at the chaos and damage he is causing that you made possible. You have no excuse. You knew what kind of person he was and you voted for him anyway. You own the damage he is doing.”
Yes, I would like to look every Trump voter in the face and say what I just wrote, but it wouldn’t do any good. Facts don’t matter to them anymore than they do to him.
It’s the effect he and they are having on the rest of us that matters more, especially as we think of where all of this is leading. The question I think a lot of us are asking is this, is there any reason to have hope for the future of our country?
I suspect there are more than a few of us who would give opposite answers that question. Conversations and blog comments lead me to think that a lot of us have very little hope, if any, for the future.
I understand that, but that’s not where I am. I actually have hope for the future. Dismayed by what is happening, yes, upset at the damage he is doing and people he is hurting, absolutely, but I am not discouraged and not at all despondent about the future.
I could name several reasons why, but for what it’s worth they all come down to one fundamental conviction that sustains me – I believe good is stronger than evil.
But it’s more than a belief. It’s actually what history tells us. History is the story of good persistently conquering evil, often against great odds. It is the story of there always being a point in human affairs when enough people ultimately choose to do what is right and in doing so defeat those who are choosing to do what is wrong.
Despots seize power, tyrants sit on thrones, politicians persuade foolish people to join their circle of deceit, all of them causing immense suffering, but not one of them has ever ultimately prevailed. All of them have either undone themselves or been defeated by good people fighting to stop them.
We are already seeing history repeat itself as good people are pushing back at Trump every day:
- prosecutors choosing personal integrity over Trump’s efforts to corrupt the rule of law…
- judges rebuffing and even rebuking Trump in unconstitutional executive orders…
- Americans pushing back to defeat Trump/ABC network trying to censor free speech…
- millions marching to send Trump the message “No Kings” and more to come…
- ministers like William Barber giving a voice to immigrants and the poor
- Pope Leo XIV leading the Catholic Church to stand with the poor and the immigrant…
- the nation’s military leaders sitting stone faced as Trump rambled on about his own greatness…
- public opinion showing the vast majority of Americans reject Trump’s words and actions…
These actions represent a small part of the push back of good, decent, and sensible people against Trump who seems to become more extreme by the day, all of it amazingly consistent with the testimony history provides. So, yes, I have hope for the future because I believe history says that is the way things always turn out.
But it goes deeper than that. I am convinced the reason history tells the story that when good and evil are in conflict, good has always prevailed because I believe it is the way God formed creation.
That, of course, means I believe in God which makes more sense to me than not believing. Neither believing or not believing can ultimately be proven true or false, but reason and logic point me in the direction of belief, primarily because of moral conscience all of us have.
All of us know right from wrong, the difference between telling the truth and telling lies, the power of love and the debilitating influence of hate. Not only do we know these things, we are attracted to them. Love wins because people are more attracted to love than hate. So, too, in the choice between truth and lies, right and wrong.
Some people believe moral awareness evolved on its own, a by-product of a crap-shoot universe where randomness rules. That makes no sense to me. Rather, what does make sense is believing that at the beginning there was God who looked upon creation and saw that it was good.
It makes sense to me that we are created for each other, to love one another, help one another, sacrifice for one another, and when someone speaks and acts in ways that are not good, are instead hurtful, mean, dangerous to others, in fact, evil, then we react negatively to them.
Good exists because it’s human nature. It’s who we are. C. S. Lewis, the great English literary scholar and influential Christian, believed the moral consciousness of human beings was itself evidence of the reality of God.
Judge William G. Young , a Reagan appointee by the way, said virtually the same thing this week in his ruling against the Trump Justice Department for charging immigrants with making terrorist threats by protesting on behalf of Gaza Palestinians. Trump prosecutors (or should we say “persecuters”?) told the court that immigrants don’t have the right to free speech as American citizens do.
Not only did Judge Young say balderdash to that claim, he wrote a lengthy ruling about who we are as a people: “The United States is a great nation, not because any of us say so. It is great because we still practice our frontier tradition of selflessness for the good of us all. Strangers go out of their way to help strangers when they see a need. In times of fire, flood, and national disaster, everyone pitches in to help people we’ve never met and first responders selflessly risk their lives for others. Hundreds of firefighters rushed into the Twin Towers on 9/11 without hesitation desperate to find and save survivors. That’s who we are.”
That’s who we are, not because we are Americans, as Judge Young said, but because we are human beings who try to follow the best instincts God has put inside us, instincts that are a powerful force in confronting less noble instincts among us and in the world.
Nor does good simply exist alongside evil. It is in fact more powerful. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way: “The arch of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
He wasn’t talking only about good and right and love and justice being virtues that arise from the very nature of creation. He was highlighting the power they have to overcome the darkness that exists when people choose to do evil as Donald Trump and those around him are doing.
The stunning and unexpected success of the civil rights movement is itself enough to give me hope for the future of our country. It should have never succeeded, but it did and gave us the first black president in our history who is currently our nation’s most revered former president.
That arch of the moral universe bending toward justice is confirmed and reaffirmed every day when someone chooses to reject Trump’s lies and evil actions.
That arch is also a shield with which we protect ourselves from discouragement and despair, giving us the courage to keep fighting, keep resisting, keep believing in what is right.
It is not possible for me to believe in God and at the same time believe Trump will permanently shape America’s future. I may as well not believe in God as to think at way.
But I do believe in God, and that is why I am sustained in these dark times by the conviction that while the arch of the moral universe may indeed be long, and may in fact bend, Donald Trump is never going to break it or outlast it.
Again, for what it’s worth…
linnposts.com 