The rhetoric of Flight 93 and Mega-MAGA

Apocalyptic rhetoric makes things worse and does not advance a policy agenda or a policy argument.

I clearly remember the rhetoric about how 2016 was a "Flight 93 election," referencing when passengers of a doomed jet on 9/11 charged the cockpit to prevent Muslim terrorists from crashing it into a skyscraper or the White House. The very survival of the country was at stake in 2016, I was told, and Hillary Clinton must not win. Then, the other side claimed that Donald Trump was a threat to the existence of democracy itself, and "MAGA Republicans" are proto-fascists.

So, yes, President Biden's speech in front of red lights, looking like he was speaking to the First Order upon completion of Starkiller Base, was a bad, divisive and very cynical speech. Biden, who said in his inaugural address that we need to "end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal" has proven himself to be a liar and a hypocrite. His message of "unity" was always a fraud.

But while Biden's speech deserves to be condemned on its own merits, conservatives and Republicans - including Donald Trump himself - have been guilty of using apocalyptic rhetoric to describe Democrats and what the Democrats would do and are doing if they remain in power. I cannot count how many times I heard that we will never have another legitimate election after 2020. That rhetoric almost certainly cost Republicans a majority in the Senate by depressing Republican turnout in Georgia.

So here is the solution. Calm down. We cannot complain about the rhetoric of the other side while we are using identical rhetoric ourselves. (Note that I included myself in this description with inclusive plural pronouns.) I said the day of the 2020 election that whoever won was not the end of the country and we should not invest our entire lives in who wins.

Christians should be more calm than anyone, because we serve an omnipotent God that knows all of history and controls everything. In the end, the Gospel is the only solution to the mess we find ourselves in these days. God can send revival at any moment and bring peace and unity that no human politician, political party or issue-advocacy group can come close to achieving. Have faith. Do not despair. Trust in God.