The emergence of the failed Texas senate candidate Beto O'Rourke as a contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination is a testimony to the power of media to anoint almost anyone. The last “savior”, Obama, required the support of a blue state, fawning media, and the tired political tactics of last minute sexual allegations of his opponents to step up through the state legislature to the US senate to be positioned for his anointing. It now appears that even this cursory “dues paying” is no longer required.
There has been a long line of liberal “saviors” such as Wilson, FDR, Kennedy, and Obama. The reason for this is that Democrats have traditionally had more of a need for a savior than Republicans.
The need of liberals for a “savior” can be linked to the idea that they see themselves as alone in a hostile universe. To illustrate, a Christian might be seen as a man asleep in the back seat of a speeding car who awakes suddenly to see someone he trusts at the wheel. A person who has no belief in God might be seen as a man asleep in the back seat of a speeding car who awakes suddenly and sees no one at the wheel. He would desperately clamber over the seat to take the wheel himself. To extend the illustration, a religious liberal might awake to see someone he thinks he knows in the passenger seat telling him to take the wheel.
Many liberals see no one running the universe and often out of fear, greed, or ego find that their anxieties can only be assuaged when they think they are in control. Often the only tool they see to exercise control is government. It is reasonable to expect that someone fearful of a universe filled with potential threat (climate, racism, poverty, injustice, etc.) would find much relief in believing someone could use government to correct the deficiencies they observe in the universe. The irony of elevating a man to effective godhood by those denying the existence of a God seems lost on them. Often the intensity of this relief approaches religious zeal. We have come to the point where universities might be called seminaries or temples to this powerful religious movement.
Sadly, it is the very success of liberals attempting to control the universe that becomes a driving force for conservatives to consider the utility of a savior. The very real insanity of the French revolution created a climate where Napoleon could rise to power. The Weimar Republic in Germany, while not as lethal as Paris in the 1790s, was filled with the stench of sexual perversion, hyper inflation, and the looming threat that the “blessings’ of communism observed at the time in the death of millions in Stalinist Russia could be visited upon Germany. This odious climate in Germany created an opportunity for a Hitler to be welcomed.
In our present cultural climate we are taxed to pay for Muslims to be imported, sexual perversion and delusion are not only allowed but extolled, the institution of family has almost been eradicated, and new levels of idiocy are observed every day from universities, government, media, entertainment, and sadly even churches. One might see the potential for a “savior” to be welcomed who would appear to put an end to this lunacy.
Some Christians believe that just such a conservative “savior" is coming seven years before the return of the real one. Consider if someone were to appear on the scene and all the insanity stopped, Muslims became peaceful instead of belligerent, college students studied instead of scolding everyone, prosperity flourished, and divorce and crime rates dropped. This person might well be received as a savior.
In a way, many see Trump as a savior. This is unfair to Trump. We suffer from the work of many guilty hands over two centuries. A cowardly congress that abdicated their responsibility almost at every turn and an ambitious court that often looks at the constitution as if they were reading tea leaves. To expect Trump to set everything right what thousands made wrong maybe too much..
All the passion put forth to hate Trump may be a bit of a misdirection. It contributes to an assumption that all man’s problems are political. We have enough history to prove that our problems are not a result of having the wrong governmental configuration. Government in itself is about the use of force. The Roman army made theft a death penalty offense in Judea, yet at least two people still stole.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was not so much because they failed to correctly implement communism, it was because there is something intrinsically wrong with us that increasing government control only makes worse. The Soviet Union, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela illustrate that increasing control does not make things better. China gives us an example of Potemkin communism in that it hijacks capitalism and uses it brutally to enslave their own people to be exploited as factory slaves the profits from which are used to achieve their economic, political and military expansionist objectives.
Libertarianism is correct in its identification of political power of any flavor producing disastrous results in proportion to its force. The limitation of Libertarianism is the assumption that the removal of government removes the problem. There is that within the human heart that brings ruin. It is only amplified by collectivization as seen at the Tower of Babel. We may need a savior, but not one that can show us the correct way to collectivize ourselves. Rather one that can remove the evil in our hearts.
15 Dec 2018, 12:37 pm
