[This article was written before the national election. We can reflect on it after the outcome.]
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò was once close to the Vatican. He is now an outcast of the official Catholic Church, being very opposed to this left-wing pope and his actions. He was accused and apparently convicted of “the canonical crime of schism.” Viganò nonetheless has a multitude of supporters, and has been an interesting figure to watch for some time. According to his Wikipedia page he has, notably, been excommunicated.
Monsignor Viganò's “Open Letter to American Catholics” is a bold missive, one could say at times over the top. In many ways, it is an excellent letter with which many of us could agree. But it does leave one wondering what this Monsignor would do if he and his like were in complete power. Would he outlaw all abortions in every case, including rape and incest? Would he try to reverse laws allowing same-sex marriage, which is, after all, now supported by an overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens? A free country should get the government and the society it demands.
Would Msgr. Viganò, for instance, work to institute a mandatory day of rest and worship every week? Having achieved that, might he then possibly wish to proscribe worship on any other day, so that Sunday-as-Sabbath would necessarily and “wonderfully” be elevated above all other days?
This, of course, is the long-standing fear and prediction of Seventh-day Adventists. It has, until recently, seemed to most of us preposterously unlikely in freedom-loving America. But the good ol’ U. S. A. doesn’t seem as free anymore; indeed, our freedoms appear to be falling like bowling pins. The rest of the world has never bothered itself overmuch with individual freedom as opposed to statism, including the nations of the European West. In the past, one could imagine harshly-enforced Sunday laws being instituted there much sooner than here in the U. S.
One of the many things I find interesting about Msgr. Viganò’s letter is how, in this very strange and polarized moment, one could so easily imagine the same sort of letter or article being written and published by a well-known figure on the left. Indeed, there are countless examples of such. Left and Right are now mirror images of each other—the recoiling at, even hatred toward the other’s candidates, party, and aims; the perception on both sides that too many wealthy partisans have inordinate power; the shared detection of some sort of otherworldly devil or devils maneuvering behind the scenes; and finally, the sheer, unalloyed terror of what this country will become should the other party gain power. [Editor’s insertion: There are significant ideological and worldview differences between Left and Right, if not in their antipathy towards each other.]
There is one fact that cannot be denied: whichever way things go in this election, each side has some bases to its fears.
The Left’s Perspective
From the left’s perspective, if Donald Trump wins, a despicable, dishonest, convicted criminal with the worst values and authoritarian, possibly even totalitarian, leanings will sit in the White House—a potential dictator in waiting. Many of the recent gains of progressives will be erased. Government will be rendered less powerful, which means the individual citizen will be ineluctably enlarged in his sphere of power and influence, with valuable programs and bureaucracies weakened or eliminated. With the right’s thirst for power (never mind that they like to say they’re for smaller government), we may well end up with a theocracy. A one-world government controlled by experts who know how to get the right things done will fade back into a dream, more distant than ever. Ukraine will be abandoned to its fate. Israel, that dastardly little Jewish country in the midst of all those upstanding and victimized Muslim nations, will have its hand strengthened, with a regrettably greater chance of survival, both short- and long-term.
With the right in power, insurrectionists, Christian nationalists, and domestic terrorists—today one and the same—will be let out of jail to wreak further havoc. There will be more insurrections, possibly civil war, instigated by the right. Guns and gun violence will be ubiquitous. The inhumanity of borders will be reinstated, with the xenophobic concept of sovereign nationhood elevated in status once again. Racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia, already so apparent everywhere, will run amok. The invidious aim of “color-blindness” may again rear its ugly head. Black dorms may be outlawed, black graduations condemned.
Journalists and people of all kinds will be unleashed to speak uncomfortable truths and even outright falsehoods; this freedom may increase to the point where virtually no speech can be controlled, not even hate speech or erroneous messaging, so that the world will sink into a mire of verbal violence and misinformation. White Supremacist, exclusionary WASP-y values of hard work, merit, and two-parent families may creep back into vogue.
Scientists will again be frighteningly free to question truth as we know it—i.e., settled science. Physicians will be tragically re-permitted to practice medicine as they see fit, rather than duly and legally held to the verities of progressivist understandings. The common good will be shunted aside in favor of supposed Constitutional liberties. Labor unions, Big Philanthropy, Big Business, educational institutions, mainstream churches, legacy media outlets, Hollywood, and professional associations may begin to lose their hard-won, well-enforced leftwing bias. The world of opinion may be reduced to one big Fox News station.
The legal right to same-sex marriage may be reversed. Fewer fetuses will be permitted to be destroyed within mothers’ wombs before having a chance to live and pollute the earth, meaning more women’s lives will be burdened or ruined with unwanted responsibility. The world’s population will swell, the environment’s destruction brought nearer. There will be more cows and children to pass methane, more carbon will be emitted, so more atmosphere will be destroyed. People will thus be brought closer to literally baking to death even as they drown in melting oceans—an apocalypse we cannot now fathom, but which is surely upon us. Christian nationalists may revert to instituting such things as prayer in schools or a day-of-worship law, possibly in conjunction with the pope. The left’s political actors will be prosecuted and jailed in retaliation for having prosecuted and jailed the other sides’. Elections may well be stolen, voting machines tampered with, democracy itself decimated.
The Right’s Perspective
From the right’s perspective, if Kamala Harris should win, opposite things will occur—and this is exactly what the right fears. The list now hardly needs enumerating; it almost writes itself. A dishonest, incompetent, and insufferable human being—a true-blue, unreconstructed Marxist—will sit in the White House. What has been creeping socialism will begin to gallop. Government will enlarge, therefore individuals will shrink in both value and liberty. For, as we know, “the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.” (Dennis Prager.) National debt will increase no matter which side is in power, but it is likely to increase more on account of Democrats. One day, likely sooner if Democrats are in power, there will be a reckoning, a tipping point beyond which the debt cannot be sustained, with financial chaos and massive suffering the inevitable result.
Unsightly, inefficient and environmentally degrading wind and solar farms will continue sprouting everywhere, including places that were once bucolic and full of beauty. The world may or may not warm up; in any event, there is little that can be done about it that won’t bankrupt the financial engines of the world and cause much additional human suffering. A single trans-world government, explicit or not, will increasingly take precedence over American values and national sovereignty. The U. S. will continue to support the hopeless war in Ukraine, with many thousands more lives lost and nuclear war a distinct possibility.
More unborn babies will be mercilessly and shamelessly killed. Parents will have less and less control over how their children are taught and raised. More children will have their gender identity transitioned without their parents’ knowledge and against what would be their volition if left to their own devices, without left-wing indoctrination. Christian faith will be increasingly marginalized, religious expression barred, and believers persecuted. Speech will be tightly controlled. The radical secular left’s decades-long march through every societal institution, in its determined effort to destroy all remnants of Judeo-Christianity, will continue unabated.
Israel may well be destroyed, having lost the support of its most important ally. The Middle East will then have no reliable US ally within it. Science will continue to be pushed to reflect a certain party line. Medicine will increasingly be beholden to the interests of a bloated and greedy pharmaceutical industry, a power-hungry state, and a complicit media. Working citizens will have more of their earnings reallocated, the proper, meaningful works of charity and compassion having been subsumed by an increasingly corrupt, inefficient, and faceless government. Innocent citizens now in jail for political reasons will likely remain there indefinitely. Political actors of the right will continue to be prosecuted and jailed on trumped-up charges by a weaponized justice system. The tax system will continue to covertly punish conservatives. Mainstream churches, already sold out to the left, could join hands with an already left-wing papacy to enforce something like a day-of-rest-for-the-environment law. Elections may well be stolen, with illegals and the deceased voting, and democracy itself thus decimated.
So, there you have a rough if arguable estimation of the two sides’ perspectives, which ought to be understandable to the other side, if not very reasonable or palatable. In addition to being kind, respectful, and open to listening, the Christian approach to conversation on these matters should acknowledge the sincerity, a measure of rationality though not necessarily the complete validity, of the other side’s fears and concerns. All depends upon a person’s essential paradigm or framework for understanding the world, one’s underlying assumptions and perceptions, one’s hierarchy of values, and one’s aims, which may be both conscious and unconscious.
But, at the end of the day, how you vote will very likely depend on which side’s hopes and fears more closely resemble your own.
Let’s all of us vote. Let us pray for wisdom to vote wisely.
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Janine Colburn is a retired RN and freelance writer who lives with her husband, Keith, in Loma Linda, California. She is editor of The C. S. Lewis Index, La Sierra Univ. Press (1995), Crossway Books (1998).