Goodbye

Goodbye, so soon
And isn’t this a crime?
We know by now that time knows how to fly

Back in 2015–2016 I was very certain that Donald Trump could not win the Republican nomination. When he did, I thought it would certainly lead to a loss in the general election. I was certainly wrong. Most of the reason for my confidence was a flaw in my understanding of the evangelical vote. I viewed evangelicals as the ones who would hold the political parties’ feet to the fire when it came to moral leadership, and that white evangelicals leaned right because they tended conservative. A Republican who was boastfully immoral and unapologetically a liar seemed a bad fit. The fact that he had no history of being conservative, and only even claimed to be so on a tiny set of issues, seemed an impossible fit. Five years later, my concerns that evangelicals would let character and integrity get in the way of a win seem quaint. My belief that evangelicals tended Republican because they leaned conservative seems dubious.

You followed me, I followed you
We were like each other’s shadows for a while

Donald Trump has spent five years doing exactly what he has done his entire, very public, adult life. He’s lied, exaggerated, bullied and belittled. He has shown no interest in understanding, much less conserving, our institutions. If undermining American’s trust in the military, the intelligence community, the election process, or our own neighbors suited his purposes in any given moment, he never hesitated. Hesitating isn’t what Donald Trump does. That is why folks like him.

It has been strange to see the very personality traits should make him pitiable to people who prize strong moral fiber and integrity are the characteristics that are consistently lauded. People who value the traditional ideas of manliness should find it impossible to look up to him. If you subscribe to the thinking that manliness is in contrast with childishness (I do), Donald Trump has been a supremely unmanly leader from beginning to end, but the end has been especially atrocious. It was always going to be.

Now as you see, this game is through
So although it hurts, I’ll try to smile

Donald Trump is very consistent. This is sometimes mistakenly assumed to be a virtue, but of course an untrained child is consistent. A serial adulterer is consistent. A habitual liar is consistent. Steadiness of conduct is admirable when the conduct that is steady is good conduct. So it isn’t a good thing that the President is maintaining his disregard for our institutions all the way to the end. He is lying all the way out the door. ‘But the other side is worse’ is not a compelling rejoinder. The right castigated Stacey Abrams for undermining trust in an election that she didn’t offer proof was stolen. But of course far left progressives undermine institutions, that’s very often their stated desire. A few years ago the point of being a conservative was to resist that impulse, not join them in the effort. It still is, there are just a lot fewer conservatives on the right than we thought. Maybe Donald Trump losing will encourage the type of reflection that will bring about a desire to return to conservatism on the right. I don’t think it’s likely. It isn’t that type of goodbye.

You’ll find your separate way
With time so short, I’ll say so long
And go, so soon
Goodbye

The Old Testament and Nietzsche are in complete agreement about something. You become that which you look upon. This is because you look at what you choose to look at, and that choice indicates where your heart is leaning. If you don’t look away out of revulsion or disinterest, but instead maintain that gaze, then something about what you are looking at is drawing you in, and you are slowly made into the image of the thing you set before your eyes. The abyss gazes back into you. You are turned over to the graven image.

Is it any surprise that looking at Donald Trump for so long has led to the proliferation of conspiracy theories? That winning and losing are increasingly more important than how you play the game? That acknowledging defeat is impossible? That it is more important to point out the hypocrisy of your opponent than to do the work of establishing the truth?

As a Christian, it seems to me that we should be the most sober minded about politics. The least infatuated with leaders and political outcomes. Not because they aren’t important but because they are temporary. The golden calf was important for five minutes. The Israelites who stared at it instead of Mt Sanai lost a generation.

Donald Trump and those who will try to emulate him aren’t leaving yet. They’ll be around another five minutes. For the sake of a generation, you can still say goodbye.