Here are some of my hopes and prayers for what this political realignment can mean for the future of America and for the ongoing role of faith in our public life.
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End of election denialism
It’s important to celebrate the degree to which our election system held, and our democracy worked in this election. This reality can be far too easy to take for granted, particularly in the face of so many efforts to suppress voters, undermine confidence in the system, and sow fear and confusion in an effort to deter voting. A record early voting and a historically high turnout were always the best way to defeat these efforts and prevent further democratic backsliding. My hope and prayer is that Trump and his allies will continue to accept the results and that this election will enable our nation to turn the page on election denialism.
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Political momentum against corruption
The outcome will build enough political will to seriously redress corruption in our system, from gerrymandered districts to no-bid contracts and pay-to-play pardons and much more. Democratic Senator John Ossoff and Senator-elect James Talarico’s campaign messages focused a great deal on connecting the Trump family’s corruption with people’s material struggles. While nearly $12 billion was spent on these midterms, it is heartening that Elon Musk’s attempt to buy the election failed and seemingly backfired. Nine in ten voters called government corruption a crucial or major factor in their vote, edging out cost of living (89%), according to NBC News exit polling. This signals an electorate that is fed up and ready for change. This change can include some measures that could even gain bipartisan support, such as banning Congressional stock trading and taking measures to further restrict money in politics.
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Repudiation of Trumpism
Voters were clearly dissatisfied with the cost of living and the economy. But I read the results as not only a rebuke of Trump’s policies, from mass deportation, the Iran war, and policies that have exacerbated Americans’ economic struggles, but also of his often hateful, pugnacious, and narcissistic style of politics. I pray that this outcome lead to deeper spiritual transformation, and be the rebirth of a more hopeful and unifying politics that replaces a zero-sum, us-versus-them approach with a politics of unity, compassion, and courage. This stunning loss should force a reckoning within the Trump coalition that pleaded with voters to look the other way on Trump’s increasingly cruel, vindictive, and incompetent approach to politics.
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Changing the narrative of Christians in politics
For far too long, Republicans have acted as though they have a monopoly on God, while too many Democrats have been reticent to talk about their faith, ceding the religious vote to the Trump coalition. This election turned that paradigm on its head, with many faith-forward Democratic candidates leading successful campaigns. From Senator-elect Adam Hamilton in Kansas to Talarico in Texas to Representative-elect Lindsay James in Iowa, and more, our new crop of elected leaders seems prepared to break partisanship’s hold on Christianity. My hope is that their voices in our national politics can continue to help to change this narrative and offer a more hopeful faith-inspired leadership that prioritizes justice, loving our neighbor, and advancing the common good.
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Progress on common ground solutions to real economic struggles and pain
The new Congress will need to act boldly in passing legislation that directly addresses the cost of living crisis and people’s deep economic hurt and precarity. While I want to resist being naïve, this landslide outcome could even open the door to new opportunities for the new Democratic majority to find common ground with a president who is much less ideological than his party. Trump has spent much of his second term focused on vanity projects and an unpopular war, and he can now plainly see where this has led him with the American public. Might this electoral reckoning inspire Trump to start thinking about different ways to actually improve his abysmal approval ratings, enabling bipartisan conversations and breakthroughs on popular policy issues like raising the minimum wage or expanding and making the child tax credit fully refundable?
https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/what-im-praying-after-midterms
6 comments:
Wow! Just...Wow! Your kind will say anything and pretend it's true. Wow.
"It's not everyone being forced to gay-marry, join a mosque or abort your babies and change your gender!"
That's very reassuring about something no one on this side of the divide has ever said.
Do you have anything of substance to say, Marshal? Empty claims are not substantive.
As to this:
That's very reassuring about something no one on this side of the divide has ever said.
That's precisely the point. The magop have whined and demonized and slandered and made all manner of false - stupidly false - claims and accusations (being the Party of The Accuser) when THERE IS LITERALLY NOTHING to the claims.
No, Muslims are NOT taking over and forcing people to go to mosque or forcing women to cover up (that would be conservatives for most of the last two centuries). So WHY make the endless false accusations that this is precisely what they're "going to do! It's coming!!"?
You remain free to choose your faith or have no faith.
You remain free to marry the person of your choice or be the gender you know yourself to be.
You remain free to make your own medical decisions and, of course, vote if you're a woman.
We have NEVER been about forcing others to change your opinions. We just want everyone else to be able to have their own opinions, marriages, medical decisions, vote, liberty, too.
And, in fact, there are many magops who've been repeating nonsense like, "your little Bobby will go to school one day and come home Roberta..." You can't deny that diabolical slur has been made. There have been many who have warned "They're bringing Sharia law! They're eating our dogs, they're eating our cats" and other diabolical false slurs.
You can't deny it's been said, you can just google and SEE that it's been said/claimed/accused by those on your side of the divide. Even when it was always stupidly false claims meant to scare simple-minded gullible people so they don't pay attention to the actual billionaires and trillionaires ripping us off to enrich themselves.
I'm deleting your comment NOT because I'm denying you a right to "express yourself." I'm deleting your comment because you engaged in bigoted, stupidly false claims and slander.
You can understand that even when Christians have been slavers and abusers that such people don't represent all Christianity, but you can't understand that just because some Muslims are conservative extremists and abusers/oppressors, that this represents ALL of Islam. Personal opinions and theories are welcome here. Bigotry and slanderous comments are not.
Marshal, when you make sweeping claims about a whole group of people (as if the worst actors amongst them are representative of all of those people), and when you, as an outsider, presume to claim to have special and definitive knowledge of what those people believe, those are the hallmarks of bigotry.
You are not a follower of Islam. You are not a Muslim. It is not your place to say what Islam teaches.
You CAN note correctly there are some Muslims who teach bigotry against LGBTQ folks and women, and that would be correct. But you can't say that that is what Islam teaches because that's not your call to make. The reality is there are plenty of Muslims who would reject your bigotry as just that, empty-minded uninformed bigotry.
That you listen to bigoted Christians who want to tell you what to believe that Muslims believe, as if they have a handle on it, you're engaging in bigotry. Close-minded and uninformed and oftentimes stupidly false claims are bigotry. You don't get to define bigotry for yourself. Words have meanings.
Look, I'm not a fan of much of what happens in the Islamic tradition, just like I'm not a fan of much of what happens in the Christian tradition, that is, respectively, actions and attitudes and behaviors that come from some Muslims and some Christians. But I'm not a bigot. I recognize that there are different flavors of Islam no matter what bigots might want to tell you. No matter what, even some who have left Islam want to tell you. There are many who have left Christianity and will tell you all sorts of things about Christianity that are not universally true.
Judge each person in each local tradition for their own behaviors. It's a foundational human rights concept. It's a foundational basic decency approach.
Dan
Marshal, in a now-deleted comment because of his inept false claims and open bigotry, claimed:
it's my place as a Christian, husband/father and American to warn against the very real threat muslims pose because of the facts of their ideology which are not hidden
This IS an opinion, not a "fact." You and bigots like you have listened to abusive oppressive idiots who are not very smart in the first place and you've been conned into believing bigoted claims as if they are facts. They're not. They are markers of cowardice and ignorance and bigotry (on your part) and oppression and bigotry on the part of the idiot conmen who successfully played you and people like you for a fool.
By all means, talk about the very real abuses and oppressions of SOME extremist Muslim abusers and you and I can find common ground. But when you move over into false, sweeping, bigoted claims, you lose support from the rational adult crowd concerned about human rights, justice and basic common decency.
You know, like Jesus.
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