How Could This Happen?

Is this question like the question of how did the fox get into the chicken coop?  If so, then we might focus on the failure of protection.  Don’t blame the fox.  That’s what foxes do.  Don’t blame the chickens?  Blame the protectors.  Who should have protected us?  That list would certainly include all those who fed the fox so they would not be eaten as well as those who ran with the fox for their own benefit.

Maybe that is not the right question.  What about this: How does a sociopath become the “leader” of the free world?  This is a more difficult question because sociopaths lack empathy and shame.  They have the “freedom” to do things that might even embarrass a fox!  It’s hard to control or restrain sociopaths in the civic sphere because citizens assume that participants have a moral conscience.

Perhaps these questions ignore the bigger picture.  What about Karma or the pendulum theory of history?  Have we seen this happen before?  What about the “redemption” of the old South after the end of Reconstruction?  Is this a case of a conservative backlash following progressive achievements?  Did the advancements of D.E.I.  give provocateurs the means to wake up the sleeping giant of white Christian nationalism?

Some Christian nationalists, it seems, believe that God put the fox in the chicken coop, or the sociopath in the White House.  Just as God turned Trump’s head to avoid a bullet, he brought forth Musk to decimate government services and led Trump to abandon the Palestinians and Ukrainians.

The preachers of the New Apostolic Reformation do interpret what is happening as a battle between God and Satan.  Satan controls the secular world, which includes the democratic civic sphere, and God sides with the NAR and their warriors, like Trump and J.D. Vance.  For them, the civic sphere--the sphere where one finds the desire for a climate of justice--is the enemy. 

Looking at the bigger picture brings to mind the question of different narratives.  There is the New Apostolic Reformation narrative of the battle between God and Satan. There is also a moral narrative(s) between good and evil, or between justice and injustice.  There is also an economic narrative or a class narrative that the working class felt abandoned by the Democrats, turned to Trump, and are now waiting for government to deliver.   

Our grandchildren might be interested in our narrative of climate change.  In this story, the next chapter could have been about us working to protect all of life. Instead, we are writing a chapter of “drill baby drill.”  Instead of being led by protectors, we are led by predators.   How could this happen?   Well, when a large portion of the population votes for a sociopath, then we should remember what happens when a clown occupies a castle.  The clown does not become a king, the castle becomes a circus.