The poisonous "all or nothing" mentality must be destroyed

We must not see ourselves as totally righteous, and justified in whatever we need to do in order to stop "the bad guys."

Donald Trump will be back in the White House later today, and so is the poisonous "all or nothing" cult mentality surrounding him. On one side, we have Democrats and Never Trump Republicans, who react harshly to any positive thing said about Trump and never cease to bring up all the bad things about Trump in response to even the mildest support of him. On the other side, we have Republicans who react harshly to any criticism of Trump, even when he is acting against the alleged principles they hold. They point to Democrats as worse and attack the critic rather than his argument.

(Note: I am not saying that every Trump supporter and every Trump opponent is part of a cult. It would be foolish and cynical to suggest that all 75 million people who voted for Kamala Harris and all 77 million people who voted for Donald Trump are part of opposing cults. The vast majority are not. But there are people in both groups who are part of a cult. That is plain to see, for anyone who is willing to see it.)

All of this is very tiresome, in addition to being simplistic and intellectually lazy. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wisely said "The line separating good and evil passes…right through every human heart." Scripture warns us about our own hearts in Jeremiah 17:9, which teaches us that "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" The line is not between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, or Trump supporters and Trump opponents. All of us have the capacity for acts of terrible evil and, if God gives us the Holy Spirit, for wonderful good works. The problem comes when we see ourselves as totally righteous, and justified in whatever we need to do in order to stop "the bad guys."

In 2025, we need to be done with this "all or nothing" mentality. We can recognize when someone we oppose does something good, and we can recognize when someone we support does something bad. The second should be easy to understand for anyone who has children: You love them, but you can be disappointed by their behavior and push them to be better - not because you dislike them but because you love them. The first requires us to have some humility and grace, which is sorely lacking in our politics today. It requires us to love our enemies, as Jesus commanded. Let's be done with blind tribalism and actually base our political analysis on principle instead of partisanship.

See previous articles from 2019 here and here and here.

---