The politicization of the president’s diagnosis has been stunning to me. Early on, wishing for his death became verboten, but all other forms of snarkiness remained in full-throated force. It has truly been ugly. Whatever else you might think about Donald J. Trump, he is still a human being. The things I have seen written in light of his misfortune has been truly dehumanizing, and therefore shameful.
Fortunately, such negativity has not been the only response. Michael Goodwin’s Saturday contribution to the NYPost struck far more positive tones. I do not agree with all that Mr. Goodwin writes, but this bit stayed with me all weekend:
While Trump certainly said and did things that were cavalier in the last seven months, he was also indefatigable in ordering and overseeing a vast mobilization of government and private resources to combat the once-in-a-century virus.
Nearly as important, he was determined that America not be held hostage to fear and ignorance. His push to reopen the economy, get people back to their jobs and his meetings with health workers and others were exactly the kinds of things a president must do to rally the nation during a crisis.
The pandemic has confronted us with a choice. The divide in the nation right now seems to be between those who choose to function in the midst of pandemic and those who choose to hide from it.
Heard a sermon yesterday based on Deut 30:15-20 (in part):
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,
That is remarkably parallel to the choice that confronts our nation at the moment. Choosing to hide is a bit of a “mini-death.” One must wonder about such a choice. Why?
Have you thought lately how much of the left leaning agenda violates natural law? We have reduced sex to purely an act of gratification. We have normalized intoxication. We negate life completely in abortion. I could go on with such examples for a very long time. All of these choices are also a kind of “mini-death.”
Part of why we have done this is our amazing accomplishments in science and engineering. In sending men to the moon or damming massive rivers we appear to have violated nature itself. But the thing is we really have not defied nature, we have harnessed it. But most people lack that level of understanding and simply start to think we can do anything we set our mind to.
Now, when one harnesses nature, it requires enormous vigilance. Dams have to be maintained or the river will return to its course. And that explains why our politics has become so ugly. We have so violated the ethical natural law that the political effort to maintain those violations must be extreme. Hence our politics are extreme.
But there is something we conservatives need to remember. The movie Force Ten From Navarone is the story of a WWII commando team sent to destroy a dam. When the explosives finally go off, the dam still stands. Everybody but the explosives expert is angry at what they perceive as a failure. The explosives experts knows his job was to weaken the dam and let the river do the actual destruction. After some time, the dam gives way – spectacularly.
That’s where we are right now. We have no need to destroy our opponent. We have the forces of nature in our favor, all we need to do is weaken them some. Being as ugly as they have been about a sick man is evidence of that weakness. Further, that weakness is so evident that it only creates further weakness as no one wants to be on the dam when it breaks.
I do not know how the election is going to come out, but I do know we are winning.
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