The GOP is dead. If you think that’s hyperbole or you think I am making that up we should heed the words of Donald Trump Jr. Obviously the name still exists. People will carry the title in the halls of Congress, state legislatures, school boards, and city councils. Still, make no mistake. It is very much dead.

Listen long enough to the kid’s thoughts you get the idea that they think this is a good thing. In addition to the takeover of the RNC, there have been whispers that he wants to drive all non-MAGA Republicans out of the party. I’m not sure what that makes the Republican party because the platform has become the man. I’m not exactly certain what that means because he doesn’t know what it means.

This is not really new ground, but should be the backdrop of where we should go from here. Yes, he absolutely needs to be defeated and possibly thrown in jail. I say possibly because I just don’t see it happening. Some people have the knack for avoiding responsibility. Maybe everything catches up with him if he loses in November.

The question is what to do after that. What have we learned? Can the GOP be rebuilt or will a new center-right party emerge in its ashes? Either way, all of us should reckon with how an evil and unfit man could advance that far in American politics. Sure, Democrats can call this a Republican problem but it is really an American one. If a similar charismatic leader that promised victory and power emerged on the left could the Democrats resist them if he or she were unfit?

We must contend with a few inconvenient facts. The main one is that the last eight or nine years has made us collectively worse. There can be no denying this. We have become a more hateful people. Whether we hate him or the people that he hates, we are a more hateful people. A large part of this is owning our own role in this cycle of hate.

I see it on social media as I offer my opinion on my public wall and see it devolve into a pissing match between liberals and conservatives. I am either wittingly or unwittingly egging this on by commenting in the first place. Even though my words haven’t been hateful, a small part of me responds in glee when I see my friends roast someone I don’t agree with.

Are they really horrible people or do we just have a difference of opinion? The answer is not so simple. I think the words, deeds, and aura of this man has brought the worst out in people. Those feelings were always there. Those opinions were always there. He just made it okay. People that do and say horrible things are at least on the road to being horrible . There is always redemption and there is always forgiveness, but we also have to be very honest about what we are dealing with.

Yet, there are also folks that are good and decent people that simply hold conservative viewpoints. There are good and decent people that hold liberal or progressive viewpoints. The way through the fog is identifying the difference. Can we identify decency in those we disagree with? In some cases that decency simply is not there. We cannot allow indecent people anywhere near leadership. It is not fair to say that conservative people are all indecent, but it seems like a majority of indecent people are conservative. It will take all of us to get this ship back in order. We have to realize that decency is more important than party.

Fervor is defined simply as intensity and passion of your feelings. We’ve talked a lot in this space about how cults and cult like behavior is predicated on the shutting down of the factual portion of the brain. The great irony is that the group that calls liberals snowflakes and talks about how we are governed by our feelings are completely taken over by their own feelings and irrational beliefs.

Their messiah said he would not act like a dictator. Well, that’s not entirely true. He would act like one on day one but only day one. He would invoke the Insurrection Act and marshal the forces of the military against its own citizens. Still, that would only be for one day. He says he would stop after that. He doesn’t want to be a dictator. Now, if anyone can parse out those two contradictory statements they can be my guest.

I cannot fathom how one avoids the cognitive dissonance of railing against the powers of the state and its desire to disarm the citizenry while championing a guy that wants to declare martial law. Yet, that is where we are. Let’s ignore the fact that we have heard all of this before. Let’s ignore that we know exactly where this leads because we have all seen it before. For those not cast under the spell of this fervor let’s consider where this goes logically. Who exactly is the vermin? Who are the undesirables? Who are the people that we want to round up like wild animals so that we can ship them out somewhere else?

Imagine the level of hatred that one must have to not only feel that way about another person (or worse a group of people) but also make serious plans on how to actually get this done. This was the fricking Heritage Foundation. It’s a conservative think tank. These are their brightest minds. These aren’t a couple of buddies sitting at the bar four martinis into the evening. This plan wasn’t scribbled on a cocktail napkin before stumbling to their Uber ride home. Project 2025 is that plan.

One can’t intellectually talk about the criminality of Joe Biden and his obvious mental decline with any rational seriousness. For one, one cannot possibly coordinate that level of sophistication and far-reaching avarice while also in cognitive decline. For another, one cannot rationally watch both men and come away that one is clearly on top of his game while the other is an addlebrained jackass. At least you can’t watch them and say that Biden is the addlebrained jackass.

This is all a psychological dodge. One has to develop a fairly intricate series of faux beliefs in order to justify this level of hate in their own mind. People generally aren’t this evil on their own. They don’t go around rounding up their neighbors or putting people in cages like animals. They have to convince themselves they are defending something. They have to convince themselves they are being invaded by some force they can’t quite understand or define. That’s fervor.

So, all cities are at the gates of hell. People are invading our country and are threatening to steal our whiteness (er identity or culture). Liberals in education and the arts are grooming our kids and turning them gay. There is a war on Christmas. There is a war on Jesus. Those murderous and dangerous brown people are coming for you, your job, and your vacation home in Minnesota.

Except it is all a lie. There are big lies and there are gigantic, gargantuan lies. The big lie was about the last election. The gigantic, gargantuan lie is an us vs. them lie. You don’t break that with facts. I’m not sure how you do it. All you can do is keep a close eye. They will come for us too. That much you can guarantee.

“I can be someone else’s and still my own.” — Shel Silverstein

When right wing cable networks and right wing internet silos relentlessly send a barrage of hate and misinformation to their followers’ eyeballs it is not enough to speak the truth once and let it be. It must be repeated and reinforced with the same ferocity or it will die on the vine. A large part of that is in understanding what exactly is being sold.

The concept of being someone else’s missing piece seems so foreign to us. The idea that we could be there to support someone else seems like crazy talk. The idea that we can keep our individuality while also living as a part of the collective is antithetical to anything we have heard before. That is exactly what they are working against. They have us believing that words like “collective” are communist. They are steadily working towards a world where anything involving “we”, “us”, or “the group” is also communist. That is why it sounds so foreign.

This past Sunday was the last Sunday of the liturgical year. It was the story of Jesus separating the sheep and goats. The sheep fed him, gave him drink, clothed him, comforted him, and visited him when they visited the least of these. The goats did not. The challenge is realizing that the biggest enemy to Christianity does not come from outside Christianity. It doesn’t come from Muslims, Buddhists, or Hindus. It doesn’t come from secular humanists, atheists, or agnostics. It comes from people that call themselves Christians, but have lost the script.

Those same people that call themselves Christians would take a message like that of the Missing Piece and call it communist. The idea of helping another is foreign. They need to pick themselves from their bootstraps. They can’t be be given anything. They need to earn it. I would simply like to introduce those folks to a person that called himself Jesus. He fed the hungry. He healed the sick. He brought hope to the hopeless. He didn’t ask for their insurance card. He didn’t ask for identification or papers. He didn’t check for attendance at the synagogue. He just gave of himself.

I know this seems like a radical concept, but the antidote for hate isn’t hate. It is love. It is relentless love because that hate can seem relentless. It is sustained and repeated love. It is unequivocal and it is undying love. It is unqualified. The forces of evil want you to think you are alone. They want you to distrust the institutions we used to rely on. They want you to think your neighbors are out to get you. They want you to arm yourself to the teeth and shoot first. They don’t want you to even ask questions later. They tell us  that the world hates you. They say that the world wants to take what is yours and the only thing that can stop it is you and your hate.

You don’t combat that by hating that messenger. You don’t combat that by simply saying once that this is wrong. You defeat it by repeating it every chance you get. You defeat it by pouring water on that out of control brushfire. That fire is hate. The water is love. Love means that we have to give of ourselves. It means it will come back to us. We have to believe that. We have to know that. We have to share that with the world.

I’ve probably mentioned this before. Unfortunately, essays blend together and memory isn’t what it used to be. I serve on the pastoral council at my church. Essentially, we just serve as a sounding board for the pastor as he makes decisions that impact the entire parish. The general idea is that we come from different walks of life and different demographic groups so that the needs of the parish are met if all of us are able to throw in our two cents. These are generally well-meaning people that have the best interest of the parish at heart.

We generally lead off the meeting with special intentions that we would like the council to pray for as a whole. Usually, these are personal requests on behalf of ourselves, our family, friends, or people we may know. On other occasions they may be generic pleas for comfort and relief to those suffering such as earthquake victims, victims from the recent tornados in the area, or public mass shootings that happen daily. One of the members always prays for teachers and kids, but does so because we apparently are teaching students about critical race theory, grooming younger and younger kids for a life of lesbianism, homosexuality, transgender, or anything else that I suppose might be imagined.

This person is well-meaning and otherwise very nice. One of my failings as people here have noted is that I am usually a nice and agreeable person. I’m not sure when the right time is to correct people like this. I’m certain it’s not during the group prayer. I’m not even sure it is during the meeting itself. Furthermore, I’m not even sure that anything I would say would have any bearing on anything he might believe.

Leaving personal belief or non-belief aside for a moment, I reckon there are two kinds of people as far as this exact point are concerned. There are well-meaning people that heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who heard it from another that we were teaching this stuff. It’s the REO Speedwagon method of verifying information. The sad thing is that they will accept as gospel (pardon the pun) what others that have nothing to do with education may tell them. If someone like me in education tells them differently then it is just us trying to save face and make ourselves look good. Of course, the second kind of people are the ones that know full well that they are lying, but continue to lie because it serves their interest.

The second plank of fascism was a disdain for human rights. The insidious nature of fascism dictates that one cannot simply peddle in outright discrimination against particular groups. We need some sort of pretext to make it palatable. So, we pervert religion to act as if God has somehow sanctioned and sanctified this discrimination. This is where Christianity turns into Christian nationalism. This is how Jesus of Nazareth somehow turns into Republican Jesus. God and Jesus become weaponized as a way to justify discrimination in our minds and hearts. This is how normally well-meaning people become bigots and zealots.

What is incredibly sad is the assumption that anyone can be taught to be who we want them to be. At our core we are essentially who we are. Whether we identify as male or female, gay or straight, or anything in between the notion that anyone can choose that for us is absurd. The liars know its absurd. The rest should know better but complain about grooming when hate is being groomed before their very eyes.

Understanding hate and where it comes from is paramount. In each case there is of perceived progress,  a backlash occurred in polite society. In the 1970s that was a backlash against the sexual and political freedom people were seeking. Women were seeking more rights and the children were experimenting with mind altering drugs. The hatred of this from many was understandable.

 

Society and civilizations are complex things. Many are still fighting that fight while others have moved on to other lifestyle choices. Certainly, racial discrimination has always been in the background of these cultural wars. However, the local and state governments seem to have found a new bogeyman to fight over. This bogeyman is the specter of transgender kids.

 

Hatred comes from fear. Yoda taught us that one. So, when we watch Dan Patrick and his merry band of idiots peacock their way around Austin it is instructive to ask what they are afraid of. They clearly hate. No one dehumanizes anyone to that degree without feeling hatred. Why do they hate so much? What has the transgender community done to deserve this?

 

The answer is fairly simple. It is the same as the drug argument and the whole sexual revolution as well. For people who have a deep belief in God, the idea of questioning God’s creation is the most serious of sins. God doesn’t make mistakes, so how could someone feel as if their sexual identity is a mistake? The question comes down to how we can reconcile what God in fact created. Did God create a man or a woman or did God create a person? Furthermore, if God creates everyone and everyone is created in God’s image then what does that say about God?

 

These are deep questions that inspire introspection, prayer, and deep thought and reflection. It also presents a conundrum they can’t solve. If someone is a child of God then what does it say about us and our religion when we dehumanize them? Of course, this is something they can’t answer whether it be women, people of color, immigrants, and members of the LGTBQ+ community that they dehumanize.

 

What we can say is that these draconian methods are meant to do one thing. They are meant to discourage people from seeking their true identities. Somewhere in their small minds there are kids wanting to go in the opposite bathroom or boys that want to throw on a dress and dominate women’s sports. We need to protect them. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen. We need to make sure this unholy practice doesn’t spread. Then comes the question of who exactly we are protecting and who we are hurting.

 

When you look back on any culture shift you can see people fighting that same fight throughout time. It has been there in the drug war. It was there during the women’s liberation movement. It was there during the civil rights era. If was there during Prohibition. It was there when the abolitionists were trying to free the slaves. Every fight for cultural change and progress has had people on the other side pushing against this change.

 

The logic always breaks down. The logic is that if we let former boys play girls sports then the floodgates will burst forth with boys playing girls sports as new girls. It isn’t even so much that this flies in the face of common sense. Common sense rarely enters into these discussions. It is the fact that it flies in the face of history.

 

Each one of these social movements had members of the movement, but the radical nature didn’t spread like wildfire. Sure, there were long-term and pervasive changes to society, but it’s not like LSD was being dropped in every bedroom in America. We didn’t see a sudden rash of gender roles switching and we certainly haven’t seen the kind of radical change to racist attitudes we thought we would see. We saw gradual changes and each movement had a logical end.

 

We aren’t going to see millions of boys become girls and millions of girls become boys. The UIL and other sports leagues aren’t going to suddenly mix the genders in some kind new age new fangled league of equality. It won’t happen because these things never happen. So, what we get is to solve a problem that never existed and never will exist. We get to dehumanize a few in order to make the majority feel better about themselves. We get to crush the very souls that our benevolent God created. This is the hate that many of us voted for. May God have mercy on our souls.

“Resistance is not futile.”  A great read from Stephanie Wilkinson, the owner of the Red Hen Restaurant who asked Sarah Sanders to leave.