I mention my dad for a couple of reasons, not least that I haven't fully processed the idea that I am rapidly slipping into the "elder generation." The baby boom was so long associated with youth and rebellion that, as a member of that generation, it is difficult to think of myself as anything but young and rebellious with time enough and a world to reform. When my father passes, however, I will be the eldest living survivor in my immediate family -- the next in line for death. With that, perhaps, I should come to terms with my own mortality? Admittedly, I haven't given it much thought, though I have come to terms with one salient idea -- there is no afterlife. After death, after consciousness goes dark, there is nothing -- no heaven, no hell, nothing at all, at least for me. This is a deeply troubling idea for many. I know, because Lora finds it very troubling that the "me," all that "I am" will pass away into the fading memories of our children and grandchildren, then oblivion. Meanwhile, life goes on.
It's troubling, of course, because the idea of our own absence is simply inconceivable. There is a paradoxical hitch (pun intended, but I'll come back to that) in our consciousness that immediately bifurcates into two parts, the world outside that is contemplated and the world inside that contemplates. We can, perhaps, wrap our head around the idea that the world outside dissolves into nothing, but we cannot shut down the consciousness that contemplates oblivion. No matter where I go, in fact or in thought, there I am, perceiving, thinking, feeling, and anything without my perceiving, thinking, feeling presence is, quite literally, inconceivable. Wrap my head around oblivion how I might, I am always there in the dark, along with Descarte, thinking about nothing, and feeling a sense of what? partly dread, partly awe at what? the emptiness of space.
It's troubling too because it suggests a follow on idea -- that "this is it." There are any number of threads to unravel in this idea, but I'd like to touch on just one -- the notion that this life is a sort of preliminary "testing" ground for the next. I have to admit, I very much like the idea that there is an afterlife where good is rewarded and evil is punished, because in this life -- let's face it -- it seems no good deed goes unpunished and mundane evil seems to prosper. No one thinks of themselves as evil, or at least irredeemably evil, so it's always comforting to believe we will be rewarded for enduring the trials and tribulations of this life in the next. It is perhaps even more comforting to think that the assholes who made us miserable will get their just deserts roasting in an ocean of eternal fire. If there is no afterlife, there is likewise no divine reward and retribution. This, with all its trials and tribulations, is it. This idea is troubling because it would seem to remove all sense of moral imperative. Why be good if no good deed goes unpunished? Then too, it seems even to condone the worst sorts of hedonism. So long as I can get away with it, I should eat, drink, and fuck my way to oblivion, even if the meat and wine are stolen and the sex non-consenual. Why not? particularly if it gives "me" pleasure and makes "me" happy in the here and now?
There are any number of answers to this question, but most come down to a sense of social reciprocity. I am not fond of losing my sustenance to thievery, so I enter into a social contract with others promising not to sexually harass their daughters if they refrain from harassing my grand-daughter. One can imagine the social contract extending to encompass the full extent of the extent of the existing law, the row upon row of books that line a judges chambers, and generally speaking when we submit to the "rule of law," we are merely suggesting that we are parties to the current status quo of an on-going social contract. Here, I might add that many of the laws extant in the current status quo might reflect biblical antecedents, the social contract itself is purely secular. We take on full responsibility for its creation, its administration over time, and its enforcement. From there, of course, all sorts of complexities emerge. What sort of "laws" should be passed and why? Just who exactly gets to create the social contract? Who gets to administer it and how? And finally, who gets to enforce it and how? Because it is not the immutable and infallible word of god, the social contract evolves over time, along with the morality that supports it, and of course this evolution can be disconcerting to those who do not approve of particular changes. On the one hand, we have, as a nation, grown more tolerant of gay sexuality. The movement to extend marriage to gay couples would have been inconceivable during my adolescence. On the other hand, we have, as a nation, grown less tolerant of "non-consensual sex," whether it is non-consenual by definition (e.g. adult sex with a minor) or simply uninvited sexual aggression. The movement to extend protections against sexual harassment likewise would have been inconceivable during my adolescence.
Which brings me back and around to the republican party. It's their party, and they can cry if they want to, but recent revelations of Trump making crude comments to Billy Bush are hardly surprising to anyone with anything like an objective view of his character. First, he portrays himself as a hedonist enabled by privilege. As a metaphor of just how privilege works, Trump's alleged behavior at the Miss Teen USA patent is a case in point. As BuzzFeed reports it, "Trump, who owned the Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA pageants from 1996 until last year, has publicly bragged about invading beauty queen dressing rooms, calling it one of his prerogatives of ownership." His "invasion" has been corroborated by several of the contestants of the Miss Teen pageant, four of whom "said Donald Trump walked into the dressing room while contestants — some as young as 15 — were changing. 'I remember putting on my dress really quick because I was like, ‘Oh my god, there’s a man in here,' said Mariah Billado, the former Miss Vermont Teen USA. Three other women, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of getting engulfed in a media firestorm, also remembered Trump entering the dressing room while girls were changing. Two of them said the girls rushed to cover their bodies, with one calling it 'shocking' and 'creepy.' The third said she was clothed and introduced herself to Trump." Although 11 other women questioned did not see Trump in their changing room, the report nevertheless has credibility because his public bragging is not merely a matter of private recall, but was aired publicly and exists on tape. “I’ll tell you the funniest is that I’ll go backstage before a show and everyone’s getting dressed,” Trump told Howard Stern in recordings released Saturday by CNN. “No men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in, because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it. … ‘Is everyone OK?’ You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. ‘Is everybody OK?’ And you see these incredible looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that.”
Second, though he has bragged publicly about it, he knows, or ought to know as a business owner, that such behavior is now illegal. By almost any definition, it is sexual harassment. In the case of the Teen pageant, it is compounded by the ages of the perpetrator and the victims. It is an adult's sexual harassment of a minor. Nevertheless, his public bragging does indicate one thing -- he considers himself outside and above the normal boundaries of social reciprocity. He is not "one of us," but in a separate class. One hopes he would not have considered such behavior "appropriate" had another hedonist, enabled by privilege, been the pageant owner and his own daughter Ivanka had been the recipient of his gawking. Although it received some criticism, the repudiations of Trump that began "as the father of daughters" is at least an implicit recognition of the boundaries of social reciprocity -- they would not want to subject their daughters to leering eyes of one like Trump and so they must refrain from such behavior themselves and condemn it in others. It's hardly surprising that Trump would barely acknowledging responsibility -- characterizing his assertion that he could "grab them by the pussy" as mere locker room banter while providing the pre-pubescent excuse that "everyone does it" as his moral and ethical justification. It's perhaps more surprising that the party of moral rectitude, the party of law and order, is so willing to forgive him. As the Times reports, under the headline banner "Some in G.O.P. Who Deserted Donald Trump Over Lewd Tape Are Returning," one must ask why? Part of it is a self-serving party loyalty, coupled with the expectation that he will lose regardless, and so they themselves have themselves nothing to lose in supporting those aspects of his agenda that might resemble a "generic republican agenda." Senator John Thune of South Dakota, for example, said on Saturday "that Mr. Pence should be the party’s nominee, 'effective immediately,' acknowledged that the recording of Mr. Trump boasting of grabbing women’s genitals was 'more offensive than anything that I had seen' from the often-inflammatory Republican standard-bearer. But he said in an interview Tuesday with KELO television in Sioux Falls, S.D., that he would still cast his ballot for Mr. Trump. 'I intend to support the nominee of our party, and if anything should change, then I’ll let you know,' Mr. Thune said. 'But he’s got a lot of work to do, I think, if he’s going to have any hope of winning this election.'”
He's got a lot of work to do? Well, of course he does. Pence suggested that we should "forgive Trump." As USA today reports, "'As Christians we are called to forgive, even as we've been forgiven,' Pence said during a speech at
Dobson, however, may well have missed the point. Trump may well know better than he how "believers think, talk and act." Trump, one suspects, may well have tapped into something more primal than the white bread televangelism that has come to represent christianity in the modern world -- tapped into what Mark Lilla called the "third stream of christian political theology," the "messianic and apocalyptic elements of the faith which in the right circumstances can be shaped into an eschatological vision of political life." He goes on to suggest that "by reading scripture esoterically and symbolically, these enthusiasts detect a chain of clues, apparent only to adepts, revealing the divine plan for tribulations, the destruction of the world, and the establishment of a new order under Jesus Christ, where peace and justice will finally reign." There is a parallel between the mind-set that reads the bible "esoterically and symbolically" and those who read bits and pieces of current events in the same way, detecting a chain of clues, revealing secret plans, most of which are malignant and aimed, if not at the destruction of the world, at the destruction of American "culture." It is the gnostic world of Alex Jones and Infowars, not to mention Steve Bannon and Breitbart, for which Trump and no doubt many of his followers share an affinity. Mark Lilla goes on to write about the "third stream," pointing out that it has deep affinities with the apolitical stream of Christian theology because it shares a sense of God's remoteness, which explains why ours is a time of tribulation." Here again, there is a parallel between those who have a sense of God's withdrawal, his displeasure with the way things are going, and those who believe the white house has been usurped by a black muslim in league with ISIS, not to mention the abortionists and the queers, and all the other forces out to destroy us. Such thinking is not political in the proper sense of the word -- that is to say, it does not consider the "principles of the present order and how it might be improved" -- rather, as Lilla points out, "it is political only in the sense that it imagines the church [and country] to be living the last days, and it dreams of one final political act or one last ruler who will bring the present order to an end, delivering us into a time when we will have no need for politics" or, for that matter, politicians.
Dobson, that is, missed the point -- the redeemer does not need redemption. Trump believes in the messiah, but not the white, anti-tax, anti-abortion, anti-gay Jesus whose natural habitat is the clubhouse at the more exclusive republican resorts. Though one doubts that even he would be foolish enough to put it quite this way, Trump, rather, believes he IS the messiah. In response to the allegations of sexual harassment, he does not demonstrate repentance, but rather, as Salon put it, "goes full Breitbart." They see "a pattern thus far from Republican presidential nominee Trump in which he reacts to bad campaign news by sounding increasingly authoritarian and conspiratorial, and today was a continuation of that theme." Not unlike the christ of the scriptures, he pulls out his whip and goes after the money lenders in the temple. At his Mar-a-Lago resort, "Trump opened up his remarks by claiming that a global cabal of shadowy 'special interests' had looted the American economy and destroyed local manufacturing. 'The Clinton machine is at the center of this power structure,' Trump said, adding, 'We’ve seen this first hand in the WikiLeaks documents, in which Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special-interest friends and her donors.'” Ultimately, such rhetoric appeals to an "antinomian impulse," and as Salon notes, is sometimes described as as “New World Order” conspiracy theories. Such conspiracy theories, according to the NY Times Magazine, "is not so much a single plot as a way of reading history. At its most basic level: A cabal, working in secret as well as through official-seeming, above-ground means, seeks to establish an all-powerful, possibly Luciferian, one-world government." Donald Trump, and Donald Trump alone, or so he sincerely seems to believe, can save us from such apocalyptic calamity. If there is something slightly unhinged about such rhetoric, and there is, it is nothing new. The Times details 50 years of conspiracy theories, and Lilla reminds us that "the messianic impulse has remained strong, if inconstant, in the biblical faiths, breaking out regularly in periods of despair and crises." Though it's difficult to see just where the crises lies, or to fully understand the despair, it does paint the contrast between Trump and Clinton in stark terms. The antinomian, messianic impulse, as Lilla writes, has inspired many things, but it has never inspired "sober reflection on political life and how that life might be gradually improved in the here and now." If Clinton is anything, she is the policy wonk that reflects too deeply (if that is possible) on the political status quo and how that might be improved in the here and now.
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