Prologue

Yes, I know, there is so many people trying to make sense of last week’s election that what on earth could I add? Of all the dots to connect, I will only attempt to connect two. I will also introduce you (if you haven’t watched it by now) a podcast that is the best I’ve heard on this shift in America’s culture.

Before I get started, I must mentioned that I had the chance to visit my Church’s Sunday morning service this morning and I found the experience quite positive. I had several encouraging conversations. This is in contrast to some of my fears I have toward entering any church after a series of difficult interactions with people from there who read this blog. But it dawned on me, that three of the four people who have attacked the integrity of my faith are no longer involved with my church. They were quite critical of the pastor and programs, indicating to me, that I was just one more person on their long shit list.

The Election

Below is the best review I’m heard of the election and it is quite thoughtful. I recommend it.

One key point that Dr. Richardson made, which overlaps with one of my key areas of interest, is a new political weapon of mass destruction that the Republicans, with the help of Donald Trump, have discovered and that is the ability to create an alternative reality. With this success, they will not want to put that Genie back in the bottle. Power is like methamphetamines. Once hooked, the course is set.

Most Trump supporters indicated in exit polls that the number one and two issue for them was the economy and immigration. Trump has done an extremely effective job in making both issues central to his campaign. In that alternative reality, a failing economy and immigrants are destroying America. But here is the reality. By all objective measurements, America has the best economy in the world. Sure, the entire world suffered inflation in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic. But due to a brilliant strategy of our Jerome Powell and others at the Federal Reserve, America has brought down inflation better than any other country and has kept unemployment low and brought up salaries. If you don’t want to give Biden due credit, then thank Jerome Powell. But if the Democrats had handled this information smarter, at least some think, they wouldn’t have lost the narrative to Trump on these issues.

Immigration is a similar story. Yes, the Biden administration tried to un-do some of the more inhumane parts of the Trump immigration policy, and then immigration got quickly out of control. However, Congress eventually created a bill that would permanently solve the immigration problem, but of course Trump blocked it so he could use the increased immigration pattern to create the alternative reality that I’m talking about.

The other part of this alternative reality is that illegal immigrants are terrorizing the country. Profoundly false. Yes, there have been a handful of tragic cases of illegal immigrant crimes. But overall, immigrants commit less crime than natural born citizens (See: https://www.carnegie.org/our-work/article/15-myths-about-immigration-debunked/ )

My main point to this discussion is the nature of alternative realities, not those specific examples above. People don’t realize how our culture has changed so much that it is in a very dangerous place. My major mantra for this blog is arguing that discoverable truth exist, and truth is defined (by me at least) as that which is consistent with reality. I have also been arguing for twenty years that while postmodernism is attractive, eventually you will have to pay the piper. That piper, in my opinion is in the area of morals. If there is no truth, then there is no meaning or ethics.

Our founding forefathers and mothers were children of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was very strong on the notion of absolute, discoverable truth and reason being the tool to finding that truth. Politicians have always pushed the envelope on truth, at least trying to leave false impressions in their favor, while remaining factual. But in the era of Trump, that has now all changed. In the pursuit of power, you can abandoned reality completely. Like H.G. Wells accidently did, you can create a reality where Martians are attacking and killing everyone, and you are the only one who can save you. But you have to be skillful enough to create this false reality in a convincing way. Trump has this gift. This is where the marriage of post-modernism and social media has made this even more dangerous.

I’ve talked about before how the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, that founding philosophical orientation that made the America, and then the French revolutions possible, eventually went too far into what we would call (one of several names) Scientific Positivism. After the horrible wars of the twentieth century, society became disillusioned with reason and science. Then, in the 1950s-1960s a philosophical movement formed (Deconstructionism) that deconstructed many long-held notions. Some of those needed deconstructing, such as the white race and male gender were superior to the alternative. But then, like a fire that gets out of control, deconstruction began to question everything, even the basis of truth itself. By the 1980s, deconstruction had evolved into post-modernism and acquired the idea that there are no over-arching truths, absolute truths, or meta-narratives.

Post-modernism did not create Donald Trump, but it gave him the oxygen to flourish. There have always been charlatans, but they never had the space to be successful in politics. We must find our way back to having real aspirations for truth to stand up to what will become a dictator of a alternative reality. This is a unique place we are in, a very dangerous place.

Conclusion

We combat this new dangerous place in society starting with a personal mantra, “Where’s the evidence?” That’s the question that should guide us. We use it all the time in the mundane parts of our lives. “Where’s the evidence that there is enough gas in the car to get me to town?” We need to make it a question that we ask in politics, and in our religious lives. Stop listening to politicians, preachers, or authors who just make things up. A belief in truth, found by evidence is the long road out of this mess that post-modernism has left us. In the meantime, may God have mercy on America.

Do watch the video above if you have the time.

Mike