The Long Awakening

What a long strange trip it’s been with President Trump.

The first stirrings of my self-questioning (i.e. that maybe my allergic reaction against Trump in ‘15 was misguided) were not long after he announced for president. A Columbus clergyman in the Eastern church was a proud supporter of Trump and was welcomed backstage for a photo and handshake. 

I was mesmerized. What was the appeal that I wasn’t seeing? 

Then I recall a fellow at my parish who has a child with Downs Syndrome and how appalled I was when I saw him wearing a MAGA gear.  But it stayed with me.  Trump had support from unusual sources...was I in the famed bubble of affluence?  There was such Trump hatred by the moneyed class and elite media and these days that is usually a signifier of someone being on the right side. Or was I romanticizing the blue collar'd and less educated? 

Then there was how Justice Scalia was not appalled by Trump but thought he might be a refreshing bulldozer of political correctness. 

Then there was another local priest I admire who mentioned on FB he was voting for Trump in the general election since the choice is binary and out of concern for religious liberty.  (There’s also a vacuum of authority given the Pope and American bishop conference aren’t the most credible.) 

So Trump was elected and I thought, “wow, what a cry for help.” And cries for help shouldn’t be accompanied by threats of violence and suppression and hatred but by empathy and trying to understand where the people are coming from. And the media tried that.... for about two hours.  

Later there was Fr. Frank Pavone donning the Make America Great Again cap. He has said, “Trump has started a movement and it’s not something that is inconsistent with our Christian faith. It’s something in fact that’s very much in accord with it. Because he wants us to live our lives openly and boldly as professing Christians.”

And once Trump’s presidency began there was the refusal of anyone but his base to look at Trump in any way other than at his manifest sins. The fundamental unfairness of the Left and parts of the Right became immediately apparent.  The corruption of the Lincoln Project is now well known but even in the beginning the folks were against Trump were often - but not always - those who were already totally discredited, folks like Dick Cheney, Bill Kristol, George W. Bush and other neocon hawks eager to boss the world.  

The Left has long been the thought and speech police so one might think that stretching the boundary of acceptable discourse would give a greater freedom of thought, like the way exercising a muscle might make it stronger and more resilient.  But the opposite seems to have happened -- even before the abuses of freedom of speech that lead to the capitol riot. We have less freedom thanks to the social media titans and corporate media shills who sat on the Bobulinsky story. 

The Right tried to show what the Left was like by holding up a mirror. By teaching, “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, so shape up!”  We now know that far from chastening the Left these things only emboldened them. The riots on the Right that mirrored the Left’s has resulted in little repentance from the Left for the summer riots that led directly to the “hey, then we can do that too!” from the Right. 

And yes conspiracy theories are Trumpian specialities that drag down the movement but the funny thing happened on the way to the Forum - Jeffrey Epstein was allowed to skate on during the mid 2000s for reasons unclear.  In 2015 ABC’s head honchos squashed a Jeffrey Epstein expose by reporter Amy Robach despite it being a blockbuster story. Finally Epstein was arrested, jailed and tried to commit "suicide”.  It didn’t work then but, despite this helpful advance notice, he did die in prison shortly thereafter anyway.  

If you want people to not believe in conspiracy theories you best explain Epstein. How he got off scot-free in 2006, was protected by the press thereafter, later put everyone from AG Barr on down that he was a suicide risk, and then died anyway because of some combination of failed cameras, failed guards, stopped suicide watch, etc... It’s still apparently being “investigated”.  Yeah, right. The best you can say that if you are among the rich and elite you can game the system. Which isn’t exactly a whole lot more comforting than saying there’s a conspiracy theory involved. 

So I’ve been woke by how evil the Left really is.  It’s a spiritual battle.