I’ve already confessed my liking for “The West Wing”, which for the record I’m continuing to enjoy. I know that at the very end of the umpteen seasons there will be an episode about the transition between the eponymous hero and his successor. It will of course, once again, stand as a stark contrast with the great sulk currently going on in the Whitehouse. If you need another reminder of just how different what is currently playing out is to previous US presidential elections, go online and watch the concession speeches of John McCain and Mitt Romney (both of the same party as the current occupant of the Whitehouse, conceding to a winner from the other party), or Al Gore (conceding to George W. after the Supreme Court halted the Florida recount). You’ll find a further contrast in how Obama and Biden handled the transition to Trump and Pence - they offered full and friendly cooperation, notwithstanding the nonsense, slander and ignorance that they’d endured for years from Trump.
Trump’s presidency began with chaos and incompetence. Apparently much of the transition advice and support offered to his transition team was spurned. Team Trump knew better and trusted nothing. They were the great disruptors, and didn’t need any advice from a corrupt Washington elite. It didn’t work out well, and it isn’t ending well. We then found ourselves listening to arguments about the size of the Trump crowd at his inauguration – poor Shawn Spicer had to insist that it was larger than Obama’s, when all the evidence was to the contrary (although Obama really wasn’t that bothered). This led to an early example of Trump double-speak introduced on his behalf by Kellyanne Conway – she of “alternative facts” fame. That all occupied a couple of weeks of Presidential and media attention while he should have been getting on with the business of governing. Some stuff didn’t get done. Other stuff (like the “Muslim ban”) was done sloppily and blocked, at least initially, in the courts. And then of course we had four more years of the same, ending with the grotesque incompetence of the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic. We can argue about the politics. But this last calumny has cost lives. It’s difficult to say how many, and all the blame should not be laid at Trump's door, but a big slice of it should. Now he apparently splits his time between sulking, tweeting and golfing. Meanwhile, more of his countrymen get sick, and more of them die.
Some will say, of course, that there have been real achievements in the US in the last four years, like a booming economy (arguable and now moot) and a much more conservative US Supreme Court (unarguable). But Mexico paid for no wall, the swamp was more than topped up, and US standing in the world was devalued (to the delight of autocrats and dictators everywhere). Partisan politics is one thing. But why over 70 million US voters find this so attractive a record that they voted for “four more years” has me stumped. I suppose at a minimum it shows that Trump has moved the dial with ongoing consequences for US and world politics when he goes (assuming he does). But does any of this matter? In a funny way I want to argue that in one sense that it really doesn’t. I should have my attention elsewhere.
It
takes an effort to remember what life was like pre-Trump, just like it takes an
effort to remember what life was like pre-pandemic. So much has apparently
changed in a relatively short space of time. And I have to confess much of the
detail of the period has sucked me in. That’s partly because of the nature of
what’s going on, and partly because I’m me – I like the detail of stuff. With
the benefit of the interweb and the twenty-four hour news cycle, those of us
who are so inclined have been able to hang of every vote tally, from every
state, in the US election (if we wanted to). We’ve been able to overdose on
commentary, counter commentary, claim and nuance. Through the pandemic we’ve
been able to see the numbers from across the world, compare first peaks and
second peaks, argue about the true value of “r”, fret about the number of
recruits to phase 3 vaccine studies. And on, and on. But there’s a bigger, deeper
picture to be seen, and it’s the one that should have been holding my
attention. I don’t mean that the instead of attending to the minutiae we should
instead track and discuss big claimed cultural or intellectual shifts or economic
and political trends instead. Such things may or may not be of interest. What I
do mean is that underpinning the detail and the “big shifts” there is an even
bigger story, and that’s the one I should be focused on.
Let
me illustrate with what might seem like a digression. There’s a lot of history
in the Old Testament. It’s not quite history as we would find it today in a
history textbook. That’s not because what is recorded is untrue (although I
admit this is contested), it’s because the Bible’s concern is about motive and
meaning as much as it is about times, places, people, comings, goings and
doings. Buried away in the book of 2 Kings, you’ll find an account of the reign
of a king called Jeroboam II summed up in all of six verses (2 Kings 14:23-29). In many ways Jeroboam was very successful and effective. If you or I were writing a history of ancient Israel we would probably have lingered over him much longer than the writer of 2 Kings does. If you lived in Israel at the time of Jeroboam II, you might well have thought
that things were going rather well. For many people at the time things seemed
politically, economically and militarily stable at home and even abroad (a rare
thing there and then). Politics in his day wasn’t quite the same as today of
course, but no doubt Jeroboam and those around the royal court thought this had
something to do with them. Spiritually, they had hedged their bets. There was certainly
plenty of religion around, some designed to keep God placated, and some to keep
other “deities” happy too. They should have known better, and indeed could have
known better by paying attention to what God was saying in their day. What He
had to say to them can be found in two or three other OT books (Hosea, Jonah
and Amos). It does not make for comfortable reading. Underneath the detail of
those days, was the Living God working out His purposes. And that was the
bigger story that got completely missed. What you’ll find in Hosea, Amos and
Jonah still speaks today.
That
bigger story is still being told and those same purposes are still being worked
out. While the connection between the nitty gritty detail and the big picture
are from moment to moment fairly opaque (at least to me), I have a whole Bible that
makes clear the big picture, the direction of travel, and the purposes of God,
which it turns out are far from mysterious. As with so many areas of life, not
being able to understand everything is not the same as understanding nothing. It
is this story I should be fixated on. While the West Wing may be diverting entertainment,
and CNN (other news organisation are
available) may be a useful stimulus to informed prayer, the big story is His
story. That’s what underpins, shapes or critiques every other story. That is
where my attention really should be.
