By Erick-Woods Erickson Feb 25, Confessions of a Political Junkie.
Joy Behar thinks the people of East Palestine, OH got what they deserve because they voted for Trump. The National Transportation Safety Board says the braking regulation rolled back under congressional pressure by Donald Trump would not actually have impacted the derailment. It was a different issue. But Behar does not care. She does not like those people because they voted for Trump.
Adam Wren, the Politico reporter who exposed a Republican congressional candidate’s sexual assault against her will, posted a tweet with “scenes from East Palestine” and it was four pictures of pro-Trump, right-wing sentiment. It seemed to be in the “they got what they deserved” vein of Behar’s sentiment. Why were those pictures relevant to a disaster?
Over the past few weeks, left wing groups have trotted out a series of “studies” that “red states” get more federal government subsidization, have worse standards of living, have more crime, etc. Each another drip in smug justification to hate the people who vote differently, often with skewed framing and data to get the results just right.
Marjorie Taylor Greene wants her national divorce. The serial adulteress is holding herself out as the patron saint of Christian Nationalism in America. I’m guessing she’s all for it so long as the millstones aren’t brought back. She hates the left. The left hates her. They are two sides of the same coin.
There’s a small mindedness in these fights and a common thread is how very online so many of these people are. They don’t think the United States is great. They don’t think we are capable of taking care of ourselves and others. They have given up on each other, on their nation, and on a future that is better than yesterday.
Offline, driving across America, from red state to blue and purple and back, you have to work to really find people who want to break apart the country and not help those in need because of who they voted for. It’s easy to find online and hard to find out there where the people actually are.
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature,” Abraham Lincoln said in his in his first inaugural address. His words could not keep the country together for a time, but he fought like hell to keep it together.
Victory in sight, four years later, he said in his second inaugural, “With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace…”.
We could all use more grace and charity towards each other to think differently, vote differently, work differently, live differently, and still be American together. We should listen to our better angels and not the people who entertain through national dissection.
And into this environment, a series of candidates will come on stage for 2024. I hope they embrace America for all, not just America for their supporters. Out there, away from the noise and the constant tweets, Americans love America and their neighbors. Our leaders, on both sides, should remind us of that instead of stirring the divisions.
merlin now:
So, considering Erick’s words and prodding you for your response, the question begging to be asked, “What could/should be the churches response? OR, their responsibility? Consider these three verses form the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5 from the MSG; actually all three chapters, 5 through 7.
[8] “You’re blessed when you get your inside world— your mind and heart— put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
[9] “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.
[10] “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom. …
FYI, speaking of being away from all the noise, the clip below highlights “White Noise,” a movie released last fall, occurring even in the same town, eerily similar to the events in the Palestine OH tragedy that unfolded February 3. Simply more dysfunction? Family? Mechanical? OR?