Can You Beat the Devil?
Thoughts on Trump's America
Long before January 1 rolled around I resolved to stop
obsessing about Donald Trump. I too am appalled and frightened, but I can't waste
my life being frustrated and angry all the time. A Facebook friend warned me last
summer that Trump was Satan, and he wasn't being metaphorical. I still think
the clownish monster Mussolini a closer match, but I understand how some
might see Trump as the Devil himself.
My own thought processes seem to make metaphorical thinking the default setting. Maybe that's why I find myself foraging amidst folkloric
and religious metaphors. Does it matter if Trump is a literal demon, or just an
unspeakably awful human being? It all boils down to the same question: How do
you beat the Devil?
The are legions of folktales about making deals with the
Devil, the usual being a bargain struck for immediate gain in exchange for
one's soul at a later date. An oft-told one tells of how Robert Johnson met the
Devil at the crossroads and pledged his soul for the talent to be a great
bluesman. The tale's roots are ancient and its variants many. The crunch comes when
payment time rolls around and one must "give the devil his due." We have
expressions such as "beat the Devil at his game," "trick the
Devil," and "lucky devil." We admire "daredevils."
There are even handfuls of tales in which someone manages to outsmart, cheat,
or overpower the Devil. Key word: "handfuls." As an old idiom puts
it, "He who sups with the devil should have a long spoon." Most of
the time the Devil cleans the plate.
The moral from folklore is simple: don't make pacts with the
Devil. That's how I feel about supporting anything Trump advocates and it's the
advice I implore my representatives to follow. Some Democrats think they can be
like Robert Johnson and gain pieces of something they want: a compromise on DACA,
a salvaged piece of the Affordable Care Act, a tweak on tax reform, a stopgap
spending bill…. Don't do it. The Devil lies and cheats and he will claim your
soul. My liberal friends won't like this, but this is not a "lesser of two
evils" scenario; the choice is Hobson's. We might have to tolerate suffering
now in order for a better world to emerge later. As the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
reminded us, "the arc of the moral universe is long." He didn't coin
that phrase; he borrowed it from 19th century abolitionist, the Rev.
Theodore Parker—to whom I'll return.
Maybe we can learn some political lessons from religious
traditions. I can hear some sneer across the screen. I'd be the last to deny
the great evils done by hucksters, charlatans, zealots, Pharisees, and
hypocrites. I am certainly not advocating that we pray for Trump to go away
(though I'd not discourage it). But most religions and humanitarian
philosophies began life as ethical systems centered on the greatest of all
questions: How shall we then live?
Such a weighty question requires, first and foremost, focus
upon things noble and worthy. One of the greatest sorrows of our time is that
so many good people spend their waking moments obsessed by Donald Trump, which
makes him the center of all things—exactly as he would have it. There is little
point to railing against the Devil. It's not like we can will good from evil.
Mostly, obsession is the gateway to possession. Many religious texts tell of
how a good person—among them Job, Elijah, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, Zoroaster,
and most bodhisattvas—are deluged with temptations and distractions. Those who
do not fall by the wayside keep their eyes on the prize, not glitter or woes. It's
not easy to do, and yours truly too often gets lured into the traps.
Ultimately, though, we ask ourselves stinging questions.
What kind of America do we want? How much time do we invest in bringing that
about versus the amount of time we spend obsessing about Trump? Let's return to
the question of what Trump wants. Wealth? He has that. What would wound him
most to lose? Probably glorification; attention is his oxygen. In the 1960s
activists dared ask, "What if they had a war and nobody came?" Today's
parallel is, "What if Trump spoke and nobody listened?"
Perhaps that sounds naïve. Okay, I'm being metaphorical
again, but not entirely. The ultimate naïveté is the belief that government
changes society. It doesn't; government institutionalizes
changes that percolate up from the bottom. Government, with rare exceptions, is
reactive, not proactive. Consider the aforementioned Theodore Parker (1810-60),
a white prosperous farmer's son who went to Harvard Divinity School. How did he
become an abolitionist? In the decades before the Civil War, legions of
Northern evangelicals concluded that the federal government would not repair
the nation's wrongs. Great grassroots campaigns—moral reforms, temperance, and
abolitionism among them—took in hand tasks government would not.
It's an old story. Not to trash political icons such as
Lincoln, the Roosevelts, Wilson, or LBJ that signed into law landmark reforms,
but each acted in response to the grassroots, not vice versa. Politicians can
be persuaded to march for justice, but they seldom organize the parades. Think
of the great crusades: anti-slavery, women's suffrage, labor unions, old-age
pensions, consumer safety, settlement houses, benefits for the poor, civil
rights, Social Security, the peace movement…. In each case, the politician's role was ex post facto. You don't even have to
open a history book to see that. How did gay marriage happen? Reproductive rights?
Awareness of sexual harassment? The Sanctuary movement? When it comes to social
justice, the train is pushed, not pulled.
Would grassroots democracy thrive if Trump were cast out
like a demon? Probably not right away. The moral arc isn't impossible to climb,
but it is long. All the more reason, though, for a collective exorcism. We must
stop nursing demons through our attention. We must move forward, not wallow in
self-pity. How shall we then live? With hope, not despair.
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