The problem of nostalgia

We're now about 12 weeks into the new Trump Republican administration and the rhetoric and vitriol have not slowed down, especially on social media. We are a divided people and it's not getting better. The name-calling and viciousness in both directions is painful. Families are divided and not speaking to each other. Partisanship has wreaked havoc on a people who once all called themselves "American." Elected politicians now believe they only have to cater to (or perhaps pander to) the constituencies who elected them and they have no obligation to represent those who did not vote for them. After all, those people are "losers" (in the words of our Republican President), so why should anyone listen to them?

As a student of history, theology and business (the latter was my first degree and I owned a business prior to ordination), I see this Republican president tapping a sense of nostalgia for an America around 1950: back when things were "great" (at least for straight, white men) and "prosperous." Well, America was #1 in manufacturing & trade in the 1950's and that did support our job base; however, many forget the primary reason we were #1 was because we had NO competition - all of our potential competitors' infrastructures had been destroyed by a world war. It's easy to be #1 when there is nobody else competing with you! In sports, we'd call it a forfeiture.

What we seem to ignore is this fact: time does not move backward. It never has and never will. The globalism train has left the station and those left behind on the platform want it to come back so they can get a "do over." This will not happen. Our economies are intertwined on so many levels with other countries, robotics has displaced more workers than foreigners and off-shoring jobs ever did, and the kinds of jobs being created are different from the 1950's. No matter how nostalgic people want to be, the fact remains you cannot turn back time.

We have also experienced a devolving in our governance. We are now no longer a representative democracy. We are now an oligarchy, governance by a ruling class, and that ruling class are the plutocrats, the extremely wealthy who support unmanaged capitalism because it works for them (and largely only for them). This is the natural course of political evolution when you don't properly manage a capitalistic system.

So Trump's supporters are angry. They are angry about "jobs" and the foreigners they blame for "taking our jobs". They are angry at "the elites" but rarely do they seem to connect those "elites" with the policies they created which have exploited the working class: like dismantling labor rights and protections and creating tax policies which threw the working class a small bone while the wealthy made out like bandits. Trump supporters are grieving what they perceive to be the loss of "America" as they knew it ... or perhaps as they never really knew it because younger Trump supporters were not even alive in the 1950's (I admit I wasn't alive then either ... I was born in the early 60's).

I recall theologian Walter Bruggemann saying in a lecture I attended, "Grief, when it is not processed well, turns to violence." I think this is what is happening in our country. There is grief on both sides of this election and it has turned into violence because we are not addressing it at all. It turns into violence in our words with name-calling and threats. Those who support this president disagree by lashing out with words like "libtard", "snowflake" and other derisive comments like "get over it" and "you lost." Rather than seeing those "libtards" and "snowflakes" as fellow Americans who also care about their country, Trump supporters seem to be bent on the utter destruction of anyone who disagrees with them.

Now I won't claim the "libtards" and "snowflakes" always take the "high moral ground" either. Nope. They can descend into name-calling like anyone else because they are human, not divine. But guess what? Those "libtards" and "snowflakes" also care about their country and they are grieving too. Contrary to what Trump supporters may believe, they are not grieving because "Hillary lost." They are grieving the dismantling of hard won rights protecting the masses (read WORKERS ... you know, the 99% of us who are not plutocrats). They are grieving environmental destruction by business which will bring back the polluted water and air that plagued our country in the 1960's and 1970's. They are grieving the return of a two-tiered education system which will favor the rich and leave the working class behind.

Why were things "great" in the 1950's - that time for which Trump and his supporters seem to long? Well, in addition to the opening premise of my post about lack of competition, consider this: the 1950's reaped the benefits of Roosevelt's socialistic economic policies. Yeah, I said "socialistic" because they are. Things like Social Security, Medicare, the G.I. Bill that let thousands of returning soldiers get a college education without bankrupting their families, worker's rights laws demanding a 40 hour workweek and overtime pay when you had to work overtime. All of those benefits and regulations came from a populist form of socialist democracy (the form of governance throughout Western Europe) and benefited WORKERS. These are the kinds of things "libtards" and "snowflakes" want for America and they are angry that over the last 40 years, our country has been moving backwards and the WORKERS are being exploited once again. The Bible has a lot to say about the exploitation of people for the gain of a few. The prophetic writings of Amos, Jeremiah, Isaiah and the teachings of Jesus are clear: God does NOT favor the wealthy but has preference for the poor and oppressed. Unfortunately, since the 1950's, America has heard a "prosperity theology" that says God blesses the rich with more wealth - this is heresy and is not in the Bible. The Biblical message is clear that God favors the righteous and wealth is dangerous because it has the corrosive effect of idolatry which makes people selfish, greedy and prone to exploiting others.

The problem of nostalgia is that we put on our "rose colored glasses" and believe if we could "just go back" to when things were "great," all would be well and our problems would be solved. The truth is, nostalgia makes us look at the past with a revisionist view which conflates the good and ignores the problems of those past times (things like segregation, laws relegating women to chattel status, and the persecution of the LGBT community). It's a longing for a time which really never was and never can be.

Staying mired in nostalgia and allowing that to fuel a misplaced anger towards other human beings rather than address the policies which have grossly enriched a few at the expense of many will be a path to destruction. History tells us destruction of our empire may very well be inevitable: all empires fall and we will be no exception to that rule. As Christians, we are not to allow the dividing lines of partisan politics to divide and enslave us to the powers of this world. We are to look forward, not backward with nostalgia. We are to be in this world but not of it and we have an obligation to follow the Biblical teachings and show God's care for the poor, marginalized and oppressed. Nostalgia is not the way of Jesus.