Month: February 2016

Just Say ‘No’ to Trump as President

Just Say ‘No’ to Trump as President

by Lauren ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Last night’s debate was a freaking circus, and the clown was indubitably in center stage.

Donald Trump was clearly in peak condition. He was a jerk to the three lucky folks* who got to ask the questions. He was the King of Excuses. He was arrogant and annoying and awful. When he would go on and on about how smart and likable he is, how great he’s doing in the polls, my friend kept saying, “Oh my gosh, STOP. TALKING.” I wish he had.

We was at a debate-watching event hosted by the local Young Republicans…and Telemundo. So the whole anti-Telemundo rant he went on seemed especially absurd. But the whole thing was absurd, way more SNL segment or sitcom debate than real life, especially whenever Trump was on screen. Which was practically all the time. I get that that makes for great ratings, but this is the future of our country. The presidency is not a role for a comedian.

There are a lot of reasons I don’t want Trump to be President. Here are some of them.

Looking at Trump’s past, I see little reason to believe he is an honorable person. To quote Anglican priest Thomas McKenzie, “this is about his character.” (Read McKenzie’s article “This Isn’t Funny Anymore: Why I’m Voting Against Donald Trump” here.) People make decisions – and conduct themselves – out of who they are at heart. Character is relevant, especially when we’re considering someone’s candidacy for President. That role demands so much of a person, all the time. What is inside them will come out. What is inside Trump is bad news.

Now, if Trump were saying he’s put his past behind him, if he were saying he’s changed his mind or grown somehow, and if he were acting in a way that might suggest that. But the man doesn’t feel like he should apologize. Nor has he, according to him, ever. Even to God, at least in the last few years. The fact that he thinks that way – that he’s unfamiliar with being sorry – would be very comforting… if he were perfect. But he’s not, and that means he is incorrigible. Literally.  Three year olds are incorrigible. In case you hadn’t noticed, three year olds aren’t so great at being told things they don’t want to hear. They aren’t good at accepting advice. They are stubborn like proverbial donkeys. They use whatever resources they have at hand – teeth for biting,ˆ feet for kicking,˜ voice boxes for screaming bloody murder. Trump, he has bombast and money to throw around. Do you want an incorrigible man to be President?

There’s also the fact that the Christian life is one of repentance, and without repentance, sinners don’t have access to God. Trump doesn’t think he’s got anything to be sorry for, so why would he need someone to save him from his sins? I don’t have a problem with someone who isn’t a Christian running for President, but I do have a problem with someone claiming a religion they don’t really believe in to win votes. (This is an interesting article about this.)

With all the garbage things he’s said about non-white people, Muslims, and women, I think it’s not overstatement to say he’s a sexist xenophobe. I think that is a extremely big deal. He treats women like we should be pretty wall hangings or fun playthings, rather than recognizing us as actual human beings with minds and hearts and personalities and capabilities (this article gives some examples in its fourth point, but I’m sure you can think of plenty yourself – including the dismissive, insulting way he treated Maria Celeste last night). His insistence that illegal immigrants are the dregs of humanity, and that “the Mexican government is forcing their most unwanted people into the US. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc.,” a claim which is factually untrue (see this Washington Post article from last summer) suggest a bias that defies reality. The same can be said about that awful post he retweeted last year full of false crime stats. Trump is doing what so many have done, which somehow seems to gain some popular support every time – playing to our fears by making everything about “us vs. them,” making the “them” out to be some specific group, which by necessity has to be a minority group. The “outsiders” are to blame for our problems: illegal immigrants are stealing our jobs; black people are killing “us” (because “us” is just white people?? what??). This way of thinking is disastrous. And as you may recall, a certain infamous regime in the last century used the same tactic, blaming their Jewish citizens for their economic problems. We all know the evil that came from that.

Trump also has a disturbing tendency to throw money at all problems, especially people problems. He buys influence. He buys friends. Heck, he bought the Clintons’ attendance at his wedding. That’s really concerning to me. I don’t want America to be a place where you have to bribe people to get what you want. (I do think it’s cool that he is self-funding his campaign. But that is such a minor thing compared to all these bigger issues.) Money talks, sure, but our country is designed to give great weight to ideals and principles, like freedom, justice, and the equality of all people.

And then there’s the whole international relations thing. I could go on and on about his arrogance, his self-serving approach to life, his bluster. Trump’s foreign policy goes like this: make Mexico build a wall, and “I’m gonna get along great with all those people.” I mean, really?? I think President Obama crossed a line when he bowed to foreign dignitaries – America was founded on the principle that nobody should bow to anybody – but Trump will go so hard going the other way. We expect him to advocate for women’s rights in Iran? We expect him to negotiate with Putin in a way that doesn’t start Cold War II or bomb the heck out of Russia? I don’t want Trump speaking for my party, let alone my nation. And he would be our face everywhere.

Super Tuesday is coming, and if you’re voting in the Republican primary, please vote for someone else. President Trump would be a huge disaster. Do your part to make that not happen.

*That was sarcasm. At this point I think that job is more burden than privilege.
ˆIf you’re dealing with this in your child, let me recommend Teeth Are Not for Biting.
˜There’s also the excellent Feet Are Not for Kicking, if your three year old is up to that.

The Fear That Makes Us Judgy

The Fear That Makes Us Judgy

by Lauren ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

 

Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks that in many areas our culture has gone bananas with the harshness.

You know what I’m talking about. Trump makes a nasty comment about Fiorna’s looks. People say negative things about Beyoncé’s thighs after her Super Bowl half-time performance. (I mean really. Body-shaming BEYONCE? Are you insane?) Somebody posts a picture of the gorgeous slice of cheesecake she got, and several folks weigh in below, commenting on her weight and the importance of a healthy diet.

Think of all the Mommy Wars stuff. Breast-feeding or bottle-feeding? Vaccinate or don’t? Public, private, religious, or home schooling? To spank or not to spank? Should your teenagers get jobs or do extracurriculars? Pick the wrong answer and you’ll be summarily shot. (Spoiler: there will always be somebody who thinks you picked the wrong answer and is willing to tell you all about it.)

It’s everywhere. If you drive a Land Rover, you must be an entitled snob who doesn’t give a rip about the environment. If you have a Kindle, you are trying to take down the publishing industry. If you serve your kids box mac and cheese, you are contributing to childhood obesity. If you are comfortable in your skin, you are a mean person shaming anyone who doesn’t look like you – who isn’t your body type or shape or size or color. If you say Black Lives Matter, you clearly think all the other lives shouldn’t. If you are a Republican, you want to oppress the poor; and if you’re a Democrat, you are clearly a communist, and lazy to boot.

We are so quick to jump to judgmental conclusions about each other based on tiny amounts of data – like our choice of vehicle or where our kids go to school. And I think what it all comes down to is that we are afraid. We are afraid that if someone is doing something different from us, one of us must be wrong. 

There certainly are plenty of wrong things to do out there, and I’m not saying that we should just let those go. (That is often more appropriately done in private in the context of a friendship, not Tumblr, and especially not to someone you don’t even know.) But when we keep the main things as the main things, and stop making everything else so doggone black and white, we’ll start to see things differently. Breast- and bottle-feeding parents are both lovingly feeding their children.

If you’re a Christian like I am, then there’s another layer we can see going on here. God calls different people, different families, to different things. Maybe the Hoopers are buying that big house for the kingdom, planning to use it to serve their community as they host events, house missionaries on furlough, and become family to foster children. Maybe the Maxwells are sending their kids to that pricy private school with a missional mindset – private school families need Jesus too, after all.

People who are shopping at Whole Foods are just trying to feed their families well, just like the folks shopping at Kroger and HEB and Walmart and Central Market and the farmers’ market. And sure, there are people blindly buying  – and you can share cool articles about avoiding preservatives and or eating organic. That’s great. But hopping on somebody’s Facebook post about the amazing deals they got at Walmart to lecture them about the evils of “cheese products” smacks of a harshness and judgment that we have way too much of right now.

That podcast I’m really into, Sorta Awesome, celebrates the idea of “sorta.” We can’t do everything, y’all. We can’t raise chickens AND read the classics to our children AND work full-time AND run the community garden AND have a profitable Etsy shop AND be PTA president AND take our kids to all the national parks AND sleep 7-9 hours a night AND run marathons. So we figure out what works for us, and we do that as best we can. We do sorta. For me lately, that looks like embracing the fact that eating an apple is better for my body than eating a box of Mike and Ikes, even though there’s obviously sugar in the apple too. It looks like trying to move my body more, even if I can’t really pull off a proper “workout” most of the time.

Would it be so hard to give other people the benefit of the doubt? To assume that they have actually thought about these things? Do we really so desperately need to be right about every little decision to the exclusion of all other options that we are a bunch of meanies? Is Mean Girls our new model for adult behavior, but instead of keeping nasty comments in The Book, we publish them far and wide?

Our quickness to condemn others shows our fear of condemnation. It doesn’t smack of grace, y’all. It doesn’t even smack of justice. Instead of wanting to assess the situation for what it is, this disposition is actually looking for faults, hypercritical, and often hypocritical. Word Hippo (my favorite thesaurus) brings words like censorious, carping, hair-splitting, persnickety into the conversation.

I’m not okay with being persnickety, and for a person who has been given immeasurable grace, it’s exceedingly unbecoming. Remember Jesus’s parable about the servant who owed the king an obscene amount of money and, when he pled for mercy, saw his debt forgiven? But then he went and got a colleague who owed him a comparable pittance thrown into debtor’s prison? And the king found out and revoked his debt-forgiveness program? It is a warning to us.

There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That should to reorient our hearts and make us gracious. If the Gospel is deep in our hearts, then it will ooze out of us. So if you, like me, recognize this harshness in yourself, the answer is the Gospel.

The answer is always the Gospel. Drive it deeper into your heart.