Help. I'm Being Sucked into the Political Vortex.

Reflections on the first week of the Trump Presidency

Photo by 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash

As I wrote soon after President Trump won the election, I did not react virtuously to his last term in office. I was consumed by curiositas and desire for him to fail. It was unhealthy, ungodly, and unfruitful—all in the disguise of virtuous activism, all in the name of Doing Something. Well, it’s been only a week into his second term and I already feel the same pull to be Aware of What’s Happening all the time. The same pull to be Outraged and Opinionated about every fresh piece of news. I admit I have tweeted a few times about his actions. I praised his recognition of the male/female creational order. I was grateful for his ban on the Mexico City Policy on abortion. And on the other hand I have shared tweets criticizing his blanket pardon of the Jan. 6 rioters. But mostly I have tried to curtail my engagement with the Discourse. And that’s not because I think US citizens should be uninformed, but because the absurdist rate of administrative change and executive orders being unleashed right now seems almost intentionally designed to overwhelm and prevent any reasonable citizen from having an informed and responsible position. Instead, what we can know is that the right-coded culture war figure is flipping tables and radically instituting right-coded culture war rules, practices, and standards (just as the left-coded culture warriors did for the previous four years). And he is doing so, as my friend

Myles Werntz

recently pointed out, by fiat (just like Biden did).

And this is what concerns me. We have lost all interest in public discourse (despite arguments about the “public square” and “free speech”). And instead are running on power and vibes. Justice, as Dr. Werntz points out in his article, is not deliberated, it’s commanded. The proliferation of executive orders over the last few decades is an example of this. Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue makes the case that this break down in ethical discourse is at least partially rooted in the fact that we no longer share a moral language. Morality is always merely an appeal to our private tastes and preferences, our emotions. Again, read Werntz and sign up for his After Virtue reading group for more on this. The response from some on the right has been to say that we must “know what time it is,” by which they mean something like “time to use power just like the left uses power.” Part of the problem with this style of politics is that it has a time limit: every four years. The Mexico City Policy is a great example. Every time a republican is elected, it’s repealed. Every time a democrat is elected, it’s reinstated. I can’t help but wonder if in another four years the definition of sex and gender will be redefined again.