The Mourning After

I was interviewed by the Inverse Podcast this morning, the day after the election, by previous appointment. My friend Lisa Sharon Harper and I were asked to bring a scripture text that particularly spoke to us today. This was the one that I picked –

Hosea 8:1-7a.

Set the trumpet to your lips!
    One like a vulture is over the house of the Lord,
because they have broken my covenant
    and transgressed my law.
² They cry to me,
    “My God, we know you!”
³ Israel has spurned the good;
    the enemy shall pursue him.

⁴ They made kings but not through me;
    they set up princes but without my knowledge.
With their silver and gold they made idols
    for their own destruction.
⁵ Your calf is rejected, O Samaria.
    My anger burns against them.
How long will they be incapable of innocence?
⁶     For it is from Israel,
an artisan made it;
    it is not God.
The calf of Samaria
    shall be broken to pieces.

⁷ For they sow the wind,
    and they shall reap the whirlwind.

I hasten to add that the United States is not biblical Israel and does not have a covenant with God -- though quite likely many people will acquire power in a few months, when Donald Trump takes office as our 47^th president, who do not agree with that.

What initially spoke to me about this text was this famous line:

They sow the wind,
and they shall reap the whirlwind.

That little poem reflects the basic biblical principle of sowing and reaping. The passage is saying that Israel’s covenant-breaking disobedience, its spurning of the good, its badly chosen rulers, its idolatry, its lack of innocence, is what Israel been sowing. All these bad choices, says Hosea, will soon reap disaster.

“One like a vulture is over the house of the Lord.”

For a substantial -- but alas minority – part of the United States population, that line might also resonate deeply today.

One like a vulture. Is soon, once again, despite everything, to be placed in power over this beloved national home of ours. Placed in power by us. With election results that by US standards were overwhelming.

Take a look at this homely picture I took of a children’s map of the US. As the states were called, my daughter and I moved the Trump states to the right and the Harris states to the left. This is what it looked like this morning – filling in the likely but not quite called states for Trump. It was a decisive victory – again, by US standards.

I saw someone paraphrase Maya Angelou on social media today as such: When a nation tells you who it is, believe them.

That is not to downplay the fact that 47.5% of the population wanted someone else. But 47.5% is not enough.

For us, the defeated 47.5%, it is mourning in America, once again. 

Cold-eyed realism deepens the concern by reminding us that the new version of President Trump will have a substantial Senate majority, a 6-3 majority on a Supreme Court that has already essentially immunized him (or any president) from criminal prosecution, and a handpicked staff and cabinet that will be carefully vetted so as not to give him any resistance.

The only possible brake on his power in Washington will be a potential House Democratic majority – unlikely but possible – and whatever survives of the independent judiciary, the free press, and a resistant population.

Trump 47 will stride like a Colossus back into Washington on January 20^th, having made the greatest comeback in US political history. Whether anyone around him will be able to call him to what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature” is unknown but doubtful.

When hubristic leaders with damaging character flaws and vengeance in their hearts gain access to massive and unchecked political power, they usually do huge amounts of harm until their reign runs its course. To the extent that they overreach, they evoke whatever resistance that a dissenting, angry, but also perhaps quite intimidated population can muster. But the darkness can last for a very long time.

People are already asking me what a proper response looks like. I am not a person with answers today.

I know that I did what I felt called to do in the last year in calling Christians to defend democracy, and what I felt called to do over the last 30 years of this long, painful career in Christian ethics and public life.

I know that whatever vestige of modernist optimism about social progress might have survived in me until yesterday certainly died today.

I know that it is time to retire the phrase, “the arc of the universe bends toward justice.” There are no such promises in this world, though the Christian confessions speak of an ultimate redemption from a merciful God.

I know that resistance to injustice is always right in principle. But I do not know exactly what form that will take for me – or for you.

For now, I am going to be quiet for a while.

I was about to say that no one was listening to me anyway.

That’s not quite true.

But if it can be said that my main audience for over 30 years has been America’s Christians, who according to exit polls just elected Donald Trump president again, then there can be no doubt that my work has been a failure.

And so, yes, I am going to be quiet for a while.

DPG