Here the reality about living in a democracy: If you did not vote for Harris, you voted for this. Don’t give me any bellyaching about God not magically rescuing a free people from the consequences of our choices. America–as a people–asked for this asshole, asked for the Party that enables this asshole to run both houses of Congress, asked for the civilization we chose to be. A civilization that–by broad consensus and not the overwhelming shame, humiliation, defeat, and ostracism they deserve–chose this asshole and his party of assholes to represent who we are as a people. The American people chose these assholes and they won fair and square–twice.
We can (perhaps) still change this. But the first lesson we have to learn is to stop with the lie, “This is not who we are.”
This is who we are. Nobody held a gun to our heads. We made this happen, including the people who let this happen: who could have gotten off their asses and voted for Harris but who could not be bothered.
There are, to be sure, innocent victims–and their blood is on the hands of every person who could not be bothered to vote for Harris, as well as on the hands of every person who voted for Trump. But, broadly speaking, Trump and his asshole party are the government we asked for, as most of the rest of the world is happy to tell us in their candid moments when they are not manipulating us like Putin or trying to manage this nation of proud, privileged fools as our Allies are currently doing.
“Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa”: These are words that form almost no part of our national vocabulary, culture, or history. We have spent centuries talking about how great we are, how the world envies us, how nothing can ever equal the power and pride of America. The last time we saw forthrightly confessed that we created our own punishments by our own free and evil choices was when Lincoln said, in his Second Inaugural:
One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
It is an astonishingly bullshit-free attempt to grapple with the guilt of our country that, though our fault, through our fault, through our own most grievous fault, created the furnace of suffering through which Lincoln and the US were still passing when he spoke the words. And it sticks out for that reason, because so much of our political discourse–and particularly the discourse of the MAGA cult in the present hour– sees humility as weakness. And until we re-learn that humility, we will never find our way out of the mind-bogglingly stupid situation we have freely created for ourselves.
The punishment of sin is not stuck on externally like a postage stamp by an arbitrary and vindictive God. It is simply sin in fruition: the consequences of our own selfish and stupid choices playing out in real time. We made the chains we now wear. We forged them, link by link and yard by yard of our own free will and of our own free will we girded them on. That’s how democracy works.
We may be able to strike them off if we finally learn humility and with the help of the grace of God. But without taking responsibility for what we have done and what we have failed to do, my money is on our own self-inflicted punishment continuing.
“Yet even now,” says the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and tear your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the LORD, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. (Joel 2:12–13)
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17 Responses
Most of the people i know who voted for Trump are good faith Catholics trying to make sense of things. I understand your rhetoric but I think its a turn off to people trying to figure it out in good faith.
I know “good faith Catholics” who told other Catholics that the choice was to vote Trump or go to Hell — no particular explanation beyond abortion politics. Anybody making that sort of judgement does so at grave peril.
Yea and that’s not the people im referring to
Those “good Catholics” can’t handle the truth. They voted for a monster and now we are all paying. This is their fault and they need to hear it.
How about in a charitable tone without the expletives? They were giving free abortions and vasectomies outside the DNC dude. People can bring themselves to vote for that evil even if others think its lesser
No. There is no element of “good faith” in the choice they made.
That might have been true in 2016, but even then it was, at best, gross negligence.
Those who voted for the MAGA agenda last year did so out of calculated malice.
That will never be forgotten. Or forgiven.
You dont know the people
I know a tree by the fruit it bears. Same with people.
The consistent actions of people reveal the contents of their hearts and souls. Always.
Trump is a distraction intended to occupy and divide us while the billionaires pick our pockets. Taxes are cut for the rich and millions thrown off Medicaid to pay for it. Tariffs are a regressive tax, hitting the working and middle class the hardest. The American people are getting screwed economically but what does the white working class obsess about? Nonsense issues like transgenders in sports.
The white working class has become incredibly ignorant, gulping down the MAGA Kool Aid. They blame their woes on immigrants, transgenders and others who cannot fight back. The real source of their woes, the billionaires and CEO’s escape any accountability.
Anyone who advocates for Health care for the poor or nutrition programs for poor children is attacked as a “communist.” Meanwhile, the billionaires get richer and richer and pay less and less taxes. And the imbecilic white working class thinks this is wonderful.
I starting following Mark some years ago, owing to a posting called “Mea Culpa”, that roared off the page.
I particularly dislike the locution “This is not who we are.” The good Sisters at St Aedan’s taught us that actions speak louder. Americans knew what Trump was as a human being — selfish, licentious, thieving, cheating, full of hatred — it’s been true since I was a kid growing up in the New York Metro, reading in the papers about his late-night antics and daytime bigotry. If you chose this man for your President, you embraced all that he is. And that’s exactly what you are.
I’ve reminded myself for a while now “Cults always end well.” When the economics of funneling all money upward finally become too graphic and stark to ignore – don’t think we’ll be there yet for a while, the grip of the cult is strong – then perhaps the fever will break and we will begin the work of deciding how much “I told you so” to administer as prophylactic balanced with grace and forgiveness. But on the retaining wall across the street from a grand old cathedral in my city, alongside a traffic arterial, just the other day appeared in dark spray paint “Eat the Rich.” Will this end well?
I want to be hopeful for things I’m reading and hearing from Leo that seem to speak to this. But I certainly don’t hear our own Bishops speaking out in any prophetic way.
I never saw this coming. I thought we were better than this. This morning, while incredulously reading Barrack Obama delicately defending his wife’s intelligence –lest he incur the wrath of the hordes–who would make Charlie a saint..?
How can this end well?
Yesterday, on the way to mass, my mother couldn’t resist bringing up her new saint. Generally I say nothing back. I steered away from the race issue, because my Mum would cheer for the nasty race comments Kirk made. I instead quoted him about single women over 30 needing to exit the dating pool–surely a grandmother that has three beautiful, successful, granddaughters (who haven’t found life partners yet) would find offense over THAT (?) Her eyes blazed with anger and she put her hand in my face, saying, “ENOUGH!” The only thing I’ve said to her about his death is that it is a tragedy. At the end of the day, our matriarch has always made it clear in all manner of ways that women are inferior to men. Even the dyed in the wool Republicans shake their heads about it.
In other news, my husband has a sticky note stuck to the wall above his screen, with the English version of his baptismal name. It is to remind him to refer to the name he put on his resume, while interfacing with his colleagues at the new corporation he works for.
Thanks, Mark.
Note to Matthew: do you still support this sorry man? Please advise if you are drinking the Kool Aid. Thanks for nothing.
I think you’re right to some extent, but I also think the leadership of the Democratic Party also shares a significant part of the blame due to the way they mishandled the election, especially on the issue of Gaza. A lot of the things they did could be rightfully regarded as political malpractice.
I saw this coming 30 years ago. That’s when Republicans first fully embraced the idea that those who disagreed with them were evil and enemies of America.
All MAGA did was to break down the legal and civil guard rails to clear the way for that malignant ideology to take over.
The Democrats blew it. Biden suffered serious decline and should not have run. Harris was a weak candidate. Plus, instead of focusing on economic issues like a higher minimum wage, the Democrats got too cozy with race pimps, shrill feminists and other assorted left wing freaks.
The Democrats need to get back to their roots and focus on economic Justice and stop much of the culture war nonsense. The direction that they were headed in, would have resulted in them running RuPaul for President. Focus on working families and knock off the freak show.