Current Political Realities
For the first twenty years of my adult life I sought to be as nonpartisan as possible, realizing that neither party is ideal. But the Democratic Party of the last fifty years – since its lurch leftward in 1972 with the nomination of George McGovern – is not the Democratic Party of FDR or even JFK. The modern Democratic Party is simply the partisan political expression of a secular socialist ideology. Though Republicans are often timid and pathetic, it is the Democratic Party that is the driving force behind virtually all the immoral, irrational, impractical, irresponsible and counterproductive policies and programs that are bankrupting America economically, socially, morally and spiritually.
Christians who still identify with the Democratic Party are living in the distant past, totally out of touch with reality and seemingly incapable of connecting the dots. The Republican Party may be (and often is) the party of mediocrity, but the Democratic Party is indisputably the party of venality. Mediocrity is a concession to human limitations and fallibility. Venality is a purposeful surrender to the most base and evil impulses in human nature. In a broken and fallen world, I will take mediocrity over venality any day. It is an unfortunate choice that we often (but thankfully, not always) must make.
When a society loses its spiritual and moral bearings, everything becomes dysfunctional. Unlike most contemporary politicians, America’s founding fathers understood that liberty without virtue will inevitably degenerate into chaos, which sets the stage for political tyranny. We haven’t quite arrived at “1984” yet, but those who are hell-bent on “fundamentally transforming America” understand that the secular liberal/socialist vision of a “Brave New World” is the surest path to “1984″. And make no mistake: it is the Democratic Party that is driving the agenda.
Politics and the Culture War
The corruption and moral confusion in America today has wreaked havoc on our political culture, and over the past fifty years the culture war has become increasingly politicized and all the more intense. The secular Left will not compromise, and while its proponents have been (literally) hell-bent on pushing their agenda, many Christians and church leaders avoid the conflict or even deny its existence. The result, as Rod Dreher observed in The Benedict Option, is that “Conservative Christians have been routed. We are living in a new country.” The trend, however, is anything but “progressive.” Increasingly, it resembles some kind of diabolical dystopian matrix in which ideological alchemists combine elements of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World with George Orwell’s 1984. As I noted in Chapter 4 of American Crisis, this follows the script set forth by Herbert Marcuse in Eros and Civilization.
As I recounted in Chapter 8, for much of my adult life I strived to be scrupulously nonpartisan. Realizing that neither political party has ever had a monopoly on common sense or virtue, I believed there were honorable and admirable leaders in both parties who were worthy of respect. Regrettably, that position has become passé as the parties have come to represent not only two opposing political ideologies but, in many ways, contrasting worldviews. Ever since the late-1960s the Democratic Party has been pulled farther and farther to the Left to the point that it advocates a massive cradle-to-grave socialistic welfare state, open borders and “sanctuary cities,” liberalized drug laws, the LGBTQ agenda, abortion-on-demand, increased government control over the economy, education, and health care, and a naive globalistic foreign policy that often reflects the values and interests of the United Nations more than the American people.
The Democratic Party has become the party of refuge for most secularists, cultural liberals, multiculturalists, the media, Hollywood and academic elites, labor unions, the trial lawyers associations, the open-borders lobby, neo-Marxists, environmental extremists, radical feminists, homosexual and transgender activists, and black and Hispanic racialists. Listening to Democratic politicians and activists, their spin doctors and their sycophants in the media, one can only conclude that the party has lost not only all common sense but any moral sensibilities it might once have had. If consistency were a virtue in itself, one could concede that the Democratic Party is remarkably impressive. The problem, of course, is that it is consistently on the wrong side of most every political, legal, social and moral issue.
Regarding the Republican Party, one must admit that in many respects it can be an outright embarrassment. If the Democrats have collectively sold their souls, many Republicans lack not only vision but courage. On numerous crucial issues over the past fifty years, Republicans have capitulated to their opponents. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of Donald Trump – and despite his problematic personality and infamous character flaws – has been the fact that under his leadership many Republican politicians began to grow a backbone. This has not come easily. In the first two years of the Trump Administration, despite holding the White House, the Senate and House of Representatives, “moderates” within the party thwarted most of the President’s efforts to reverse Obama’s socialist agenda. Although social conservatives constitute at least half of the party’s support base, they are constantly locked in a protracted struggle with the GOP’s establishment elites who care little about the great moral and cultural issues of our time so long as the party promotes lower taxes, “free trade” and fewer government regulations on business. As a result, most everything that President Trump accomplished other than judicial appointments came by way of executive orders which will of course be overturned as soon as the next Democrat is elected president.
In actuality, the main difference in the political parties is that the Republican Party has a base of social conservatives who care about traditional moral values while the Democratic Party functions as the political arm of a radical secular cultural agenda that is absolutely devastating the moral and civic climate in America. Furthermore, the Republican base includes millions of Christians who care passionately about religious liberty. Within the Democratic Party, virtually the only time religious liberty is a priority is when Muslim rights are an issue.
All things considered, the bottom-line is that while the Republican Party is the party of mediocrity, the Democratic Party is the party of venality. Mediocrity is a concession to human weakness and fallibility, while venality is an expression of the innate evil within human nature. Therefore, while the Republican Party is potentially redeemable, the Democratic Party is irredeemably hopeless. And therein lies the difference.
There are, of course, pietistic Christians who refuse to compromise their standards for what they regard as political expediency. These are those who believe that politics is corrupt, messy, divisive (which it often is), and too “worldly.” So while our culture disintegrates, they are content to watch from the sidelines. But if we truly put into practice what Jesus taught as “the greatest commandment(s)” – to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love others as we love ourselves (Matt. 22:37-40) – we must care not only for the souls of others but also their physical, material, emotional, mental, and social needs as well. Politics and government are important as they formulate policies and programs and enforce (or fail to enforce) laws that have a direct and profound effect on the lives of citizens, either for better or worse. Christians should seriously consider: How can we possibly love others as we love ourselves if we are indifferent to the kinds of laws, policies and programs that regulate our lives and those of others?
There is a saying that “the enemy of the good is the best” – i.e., those who insist on perfection often end up with the very worst option. This is certainly true in politics where we are often forced to choose between two less-than-ideal candidates. But just as no two people are truly equal, likewise one candidate is always at least incrementally better than the other. Realistically, politics is often about damage control – i.e., not only who will do the most good, but who will do the least harm – and Christians have a moral and civic responsibility to do what they can to keep the very worst men and women out of office even when the alternative is far from ideal. That is the choice we often have to make in a fallen world, and the failure to do so is irresponsible.
When self-proclaimed Democratic “progressives” talk so glibly about “hope and change,” they don’t mean a sober reassessment of policies and programs that have obviously failed. Because the party has become the political enforcer of a radical secular Left-wing agenda, it is apparent that their idea of “change” means altering the fundamental core values, the institutions and the socio/political philosophy on which America was founded. Based on their cynical view of our nation’s past, their goal most obviously is a radical transformation that includes all aspects of American life and culture. Christians, and conservatives in general, had best beware.
[Excerpts from American Crisis: Cultural Marxism and the Culture War – A Christian Response (Centre•Pointe Publishing, 2020)]
