By Rudy Barnes, Jr.
The
fabric of America’s democracy is coming apart at the seams. Contentious identity politics have polarized
an electorate that has forgotten its responsibility to protect the fabric of democracy. Today’s America has fragmented into hostile partisan
minorities—one being the remnants of a former middle-class white majority that
has taken refuge in a radicalized GOP.
America
is experiencing a crisis in its political morality. While 70% of Americans consider themselves
Christians, most of them have supported Donald Trump, who represents the
antithesis of Christian moral values. It
seems that America has lost its moral compass, and it will take a revival to
restore legitimacy to its politics.
America’s
politicians unanimously proclaim America the greatest nation on earth, with no
need to repent. I must dissent. Our culture exemplifies a lust for power,
materialism and hedonism. Our obsession
with competition and disdain for cooperation have corrupted our culture and politics. Both candidates for President exemplify a lack
the virtues and integrity needed for that high office. They provide irrefutable evidence of the need
for a moral revival.
America the Beautiful is a patriotic
hymn that reminds us that we need to be reconciled and redeemed as the nation God
would have us to be: America! America!
God mend thine every flaw. Confirm thy
soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.
We need to acknowledge the moral corruption of our politics. We cannot blame God for that. In our democracy we must accept personal
responsibility for the quality of our politics if we expect to retain our liberty in law.
Donald
Trump, Hillary Clinton and the members of Congress who share their partisan politics
are not the cause of our moral decadence and corruption—they merely reflect
it. We enabled their ascent to political
power, and without a moral revival America will continue its moral
decline. What can we do to restore moral
legitimacy to our corrupt political process?
We
must first acknowledge our unrealistic political expectations. We expect unlimited freedom and the
opportunity to achieve our many wants, with a strong military to protect our
national security interests overseas and law enforcement to protect us at home. We expect quality education, health care and generous
social security—all with low taxes and a balanced budget. We expect too much from too little investment
in our nation—and that’s a moral issue.
A moral revival should be based on the greatest commandment to love God and
our neighbors as we love ourselves. Jesus
lamented the moral corruption of Jerusalem over 2,000 years ago (see Matthew
23:37-39; Luke 13:34-35). The remedy for
us today is the same as it was for the ancient Jews. We must repent and experience a moral revival
in order to balance our love for ourselves with the love for others—all others, even those we would rather
ignore.
We
can start with economics. Americans might
be considered as the rich and the rest. The rich are getting richer by exploiting the
rest in a shrinking middle class, and politicians have long pandered to the
rich and relied on their contributions to stay in office. A moral revival in politics must address the evil
of the rich buying political influence and power and focus on restoring a
healthy middle class and helping the poor.
That will be a daunting challenge.
The
rest of us are complicit in the demise of our democracy. We have elected politicians who lack moral
integrity in exchange for their promises of lower taxes and more benefits, and we
have demanded more rights for ourselves at the expense of the rights of others. Fundamentalist Christians have claimed the
freedom to discriminate against homosexuals, whom they consider sinners, and to
desecrate other religions. It may be
legal to burn the Qur’an, but it’s not moral.
A
coalition of minorities now has more political influence than the shrinking
white majority, and racial discrimination continues to be a clarion call to
address the inequities and violence of a black subculture in urban areas. It is the most divisive issue of identity
politics. The problems are real and
there is a legitimate need to curtail police brutality, but anti-police and
anti-American rhetoric and hostility to promote racial justice do more harm
than good.
We
are a nation divided by contentious identity issues. Political reconciliation in an increasingly
pluralistic nation will require balancing our individual wants and rights with our
obligation to provide for the common good.
That will require elected officials of moral integrity and trust, and
our two-party duopoly has failed to provide them. Additional political parties are needed to
provide the choices that are necessary to restore legitimacy to our politics.
A
moral revival of our politics will require subordinating identity politics to a
revitalized sense of patriotism that can reconcile us and redeem our great
experiment in democracy. That will
require protecting our shrinking middle class from further exploitation by the
rich, and rejecting the further polarization of our politics by issues of race,
religion and sexual preference.
If
this moral revival sounds religious, that’s because it is. Most Americans are religious, and their faith
provides them with moral standards of legitimacy based on loving others as they
love themselves. For Americans to be
true to their faith, they need to apply its moral principles to their politics. In that sense we need to mix our religion and
our politics to restore legitimacy to our politics. That will enable us to be reconciled and
redeemed as America the Beautiful.
Notes
and References:
On the extent of voter pessimism,
partisan division and political hostility in America, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-every-state-pessimism-about-trump-clinton-and-the-impact-of-the-election/2016/09/06/ecff15d0-739a-11e6-b786-19d0cb1ed06c_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1.
On Fareed Zakaria’s commentary on
identity politics as the cause of political polarization, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its-no-longer-the-economy-stupid-our-identity-politics-are-polarizing-us/2016/09/15/7bb61f9e-7b75-11e6-bd86-b7bbd53d2b5d_story.html?utm_term=.672847e137a9&wpisrc=nl_opinions&wpmm=1.
On The Elusive Ideal of Political Reconciliation, see http://www.jesusmeetsmuhammad.com/2016/07/the-elusive-ideal-of-political.html.
On Religion, Race and the Deterioration of Democracy in America, see
On morality, politics and economic
issues, see Wealth, Politics, Religion
and Economic Justice at http://www.jesusmeetsmuhammad.com/2015/03/wealth-politics-religion-and-economic.html;
also, Liberation from Economic Oppression: A Human Right or a Moral
Obligation of Faith? at http://www.jesusmeetsmuhammad.com/2015/05/liberation-from-economic-oppression.html, God, Money and Politics at http://www.jesusmeetsmuhammad.com/2015/10/god-money-and-politics.html, and Christianity and Capitalism: Strange
Bedfellows in Politics, at http://www.jesusmeetsmuhammad.com/2016/06/christianity-and-capitalism-strange.html.
The
greatest commandment
not only summarizes the Christian moral ethic, it is also a common word of faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. See The
Greatest Commandment as a Common Word of Faith at http://www.jesusmeetsmuhammad.com/2015/01/the-greatest-commandment-common-word-of.html.
For an example of a call for a moral
revival in politics in the context of a liberal agenda, see Higher Ground Moral Declaration at http://www.moralrevival.org/moraldeclaration/. The political objectives advocated are ideals
that should invite healthy political debate, but that is not likely in the
current polarized and hostile partisan political environment.
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