Before long, if you spend any time reading or watching the news, you will be inundated with analysis of why the U.S. did what it did.
Bold proclamations about immigration and the economy will have been made. The U.S. electorate will have been slicked up into voting blocs and questioned about their respective intents and motives.
Why did some marginalized groups vote for Trump in slightly higher numbers? Where were the white women? Rural, urban, suburban, educated, white working class, Black working class, cat ladies and “bros” will all have numerous think pieces dedicated to their voting patterns.
The Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza will justifiably be picked apart. Racism and sexism will receive their rightful place in many investigations, as will ruminations on fascism and authoritarianism.
“The Democrats moved too far to the right!” and “The Democrats moved too far to the left!” will receive equal and equally confident pronouncements.
Pundits will proclaim that “this” is the reason it happened. They will all, more or less, be correct. The truth will exist somewhere in the sum total of each analysis. I don’t presume my take is any more informed or enlightened than the others. It is simply part of the whole.
Donald Trump will return to the presidency because feelings are stronger motivators than facts.
In the previous few months, I have watched enough cable news pundit panels to raise my blood pressure to unhealthy levels and send me looking for a good therapist. I confess this was an unwise use of my time because they all follow similar patterns.
One of those patterns goes something like this –
Trump-supporting Pundit: Regardless of what anyone thinks about Donald Trump, this election will be about the economic anxiety the everyday American is feeling at the gas pump and the grocery store.
Economic Reporter: The data from the most conservative to the most progressive economists show that inflation has slowed and wages are catching up to higher prices. Unemployment is at an all-time low and the American economy has pulled off the greatest post-COVID recovery of any of the world’s developed nations.
Trump-supporting Pundit: Try showing that data to the mom in suburban Georgia who is paying $7.00 for a dozen eggs.
Economic Reporter: The data is the data. Your suburban Georgia mom is an anecdote, and of course, plenty of them are struggling and need things to get even better than they are. However, the facts show that more people’s economic prospects are improving than ever before.
Trump-supporting Pundit: I’ll make sure to bring a copy of your data to the gas stations across rural Pennsylvania and show it to people who feel they have been left behind.
ER (screaming): Here’s another fact.
TSP (screaming): Here’s how people are feeling.
And the economy is the tip of the iceberg.
There’s a reason why the image of Rachel Levine, a mid-level Assistant Secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services, has become a widely distributed MAGA meme. For those who preach the fictitious American gospel of “meritocracy,” Levine’s resume is exceptional and more than qualifies her for her job. But as a trans woman, her appearance evokes certain feelings in people.
There’s a reason why Republicans demanded their opponents “say the name” of Laken Riley, a young woman tragically killed by an undocumented immigrant, but refused to say the names of the growing number of women who have died as a result of draconian abortion bans.
Both situations involve deep feelings of sadness and a feeling that says, “it shouldn’t be this way.” Only one, though, allows for the equally deep feeling of hatred against an assailant and the even more inviting feeling of scapegoating an entire group of people.
As far as feelings go, sadness doesn’t motivate as well as hatred.
There’s a reason certain people felt Hillary Clinton was “too corrupt” and Kamala Harris “too dumb.” It’s the same reason most of those same people didn’t vote for Nikki Haley, a candidate whose record was almost perfectly aligned with Trump’s.
Misogyny and racism are feelings.
Deadly ones.
The irony isn’t that only one side of the U.S. political divide uses feelings as a motivator—both do it in equal measure. The irony is that the side that often screams, “F@!* your feelings!” uses feelings as a motivator with unmatched excellence.
They don’t only harness feelings with studied brilliance. They know how to manufacture the types of feelings that would motivate someone to overlook a mountain of facts. It’s no accident that tens of millions of people who freebase Trump-approved media outlets and social media accounts feel anxiety about the economy and immigration despite the facts showing both are rapidly improving.
None of this should be read as a diatribe against feelings, which are powerful and integral aspects of being human. But they are to be held in tension with other equally powerful aspects of being human, such as reason, empathy and sacrifice.
I couldn’t help but wake up on Wednesday morning and think about the part of the Exodus story where Moses seemed stuck in a continuous loop of going up and down the mountain.
On one of his trips down (Exodus 32), Joshua heard what sounded like “the sound of war.” Moses replied, “That’s not the sound of victory or defeat. It’s the sound of singing.”
What they discovered was their people, who had been delivered from bondage and given purpose and identity in God, dancing around an idol built from their golden jewelry. Turning away from deliverance and toward idolatry is a feeling. It’s a ubiquitous one and difficult to overcome.
This is not a perfect analogy for this moment, of course. No opponent of Trump, whether Clinton, Harris, or Haley, will ever be Moses, and progressives do a fine enough job of creating our own idols. No human characters in our drama fully represent the voice of God.
But it is instructive.
More than anything, it reminds those of us who seek to follow Jesus that we live in apocalyptic times. The word “Apocalypse” implies an ending of some kind. But the meaning of the word “apocalypse” has very little to do with finality. It is about things being uncovered or revealed.
A lot has been revealed in our country in the past decade. Prophets in marginalized communities will rightly tell us these things have been in front of us all along, but sometimes, even Jesus needs multiple attempts to heal us of our blindness.
For many of us, these are dark times, but we now have no excuse not to see clearly.
One of those revelations is that people need to feel whole before they believe they are whole. The bad news is that this sometimes requires a deft touch of care that can feel like manipulation. The good news is that the Holy Spirit can be a tricky miracle worker, and revival fires burn best in parched lands.
Senior Editor at Good Faith Media.
