What I must say

There’s a fear which keeps surfacing in my psyche. It’s the fear that I will be taken away from my children by a society increasingly free to exercise violence towards nonconformity. This fear arises most often when I read articles about the narrow edge our society balances upon with the upcoming presidential election.

On a political level, I do not care whether one votes for a Republican or a Democratic candidate. “Let each vote according to their conscience” is a foundational principle in a Democratic Republic. On a personal level, the idea that either family or friends would choose Donald Trump for president a second time feels like they are sentencing me to prison, maybe even death.

When I had read similarly personal reactions to Donald Trump in the first election, I was dismissive. “These people are taking politics too personally” I thought. And if his behavior after the election had been mellowed by the influence of serving in a tri-power government or his rhetoric been proven mere grandstanding in practice, perhaps my dismissal would have been reasonable. But instead of embracing the realities of serving in a government where no branch holds authoritative power, Donald Trump has hardened in his conviction that he deserves unilateral authority. Where he has exercised power, his choices have coincided with his abusive election rhetoric.

Former president Trump has been consistent in his position towards minorities. He imprisons immigrants, threatens protestors, and befriends white supremacists. The lynching of his own vice president would not upset him, and he holds even less concern for targets of violent followers so long as he holds sway over them. Where our first president walked away from power to establish a free government, our last president will stop at nothing to grab and hold power.

You read that correctly. I pray that I’m wrong, but at present I don’t believe there will be another president after Donald Trump is reelected. He has no desire to concede power. He’s tested the American people to see if they might offer him absolute authority and received a limited yes which a reelection will confirm as an absolute yes. As Romans shouted “Imperator!” we will welcome the end of our Republic.

(I am incredulous even as I re-read my own words. Does anyone believe such things will happen in their own lifetime?)

Donald Trump is not actually the source of my fear. I am not afraid of Donald Trump’s empire. He is a narcissist and a skilled manipulator, but I doubt that he believes in eugenics or cares in what God others trust. He’s a reckless opportunist who may have found his hour, as Julius Ceasar did his. However, Julius Ceasar was assassinated on the Senate stairs and the emperors who followed him were lunatics. Donald Trump will open the gates, but his successors will rape the city.

Even if by some miracle his dying words are not “E tu, Brute?”, it may not ultimately matter. In Hitler’s regime, were the horrors that followed purely the execution of one man’s master plan, or was it the liberties afforded his lieutenants which made room for atrocity upon atrocity? I suspect that Donald Trump merely needs to turn a blind eye for history to repeat itself.

To have voted for a Republican which happened to be Donald Trump is unsettling, but I can sympathize with the motives which lead people towards the Republican party. I have voted for Republicans in the past and I would do so again. But I can no longer conceive of a vote for Donald Trump as a purely party decision after all that’s happened. A second vote for Trump has become an ethical agreement with his actions.

How does all this circle back to me, a white heterosexual male: of all classes of people the least in danger of a lynching mob? Because with all the courage my quaking, quavering heart can muster I will resist. Not in kind - I will raise no hand in violence - but with the same sacrificial love with which Jesus defeated an Empire. Which is why I ask that you Pray For My Family.

If you still choose Donald Trump, I do not condemn you, even though you make yourself my enemy by choosing a future that could end my life. Whether you hear my words now or are finally shaken awake by the men pulling your neighbor from her home, the hour is not too late for you to turn away. If the axe is truly at the root of the tree, as it was in the days of Jesus, then neither of us will escape the wrath to come. But we can keep our humanity and, when the day of vindication has fully come, we will be justified by our trust in Jesus.

If you are ardently against Donald Trump but do not share my trust in Jesus and his resurrection, join me before your resolve is tested at gunpoint. We will need the Power that sustained Jesus on the path to Calvary if we are to face a similar fate with honor. Become acquainted with the suffering King whose death liberates those who were in lifelong bondage because of their fear of death.

Two Months Later

I wrote the initial post in September 2023. This topic weighed heavily on my psyche and I wanted to record it in hopes that I could let it go. I also confessed these fears to a trustworthy friend. Here in November I can confidently announce that, between writing and confession, this is no longer weighing heavily on me! My perception has not changed, but it’s no longer filling me with the same dread. I suspect there’s an element of spiritual attack in this feeling that was weakened through confession.