Lesson Eleven: Investigate

I used to be a conservative, evangelical-adjacent, Republican. 

I went to a George W. Bush rally in 2000, a Sarah Palin rally in 2008, and a Mitt Romney rally in 2012. I understood that Hillary Clinton was one of the greatest enemies the United States has ever known.

I was worried that when Obama won, with Democrats in full control of Congress, they would implement all kinds of socialist policies that would destroy the fabric of America.

Then…all the things that I had been told to worry about didn’t happen. The Democrats were in control, and everything was fine. I started to get suspicious about the content I was getting. 

I started noticing that the words “Marxist,” “Leninist,” “Stalinist,” “Communist,” “Socialist,” and “Leftist,” were being used interchangeably to describe anything that was deemed “liberal.”

My news wasn’t fair and balanced anymore. The debates turned into bullying sessions. It just sounded like anger.

Then the “conservative” talking points stopped sounding conservative. Cutting taxes is great, but we can’t cut taxes indefinitely. I like roads - good roads with lights and signage. 

Public schools had become the enemy of the people, but why? Quality public schools are key factors in ending poverty and having an informed electorate. My kid learned that “states’ rights” was the cause of the Civil War in the 2000s. They are not hotbeds of liberal ideology. 

I started to notice changes in my friends. People who once championed the love of neighbor were blaming their neighbors for… for what, I wasn’t even sure. 

I felt like I was in an echo chamber. Even though I had been conditioned not to trust “mainstream media,” I needed to see for myself what they were saying. I started fact checking. I would listen to the whole speech that a politician gave, not just the sound bites I had been fed.

I did my best to investigate. I tried to listen to both sides, all sides. I looked for original sources.

At the same, I was leaning deeper into my faith; seeking to understand what it means to be a Christian. I’ve talked about that in a lot of other spaces, but the short version is that Christianity is about Jesus.

By the mid-2010s, what I witnessed was that the Republican Party had abandoned conservatism in favor of far-right extremism and evangelicals had abandoned Jesus.

I felt betrayed and adrift.

For a few years, I hoped that both would find their way again, then came 2020 and 2021.

Maybe you kept the faith. Maybe because the Republicans and the media you consume convinced you that the Democrats were Marxists bent on turning the U.S. into the U.S.S.R., you believed that you had to trust the Republicans were the ones saving democracy.

Maybe the events of the last two weeks have made you start to question everything.

Consider the possibility that the administration is lying about more than just a couple of videos. 

Consider the possibility that the people who worked in the previous Trump administration were telling the truth when they warned us about his authoritarian tendencies and lack of moral fortitude.

Ask the questions. Follow the evidence - but be wary of where that evidence comes from.

I have spent the last five years investigating and here’s what I found:

This is not the liberal vs. conservative world that we grew up in. It is liberalism vs. authoritarianism.

Liberalism is what this country was founded on. Liberalism is the idea that all men are created equal and that the Bill of Rights applies to everyone. Liberalism is the idea that we are a Constitutional Republic - that the Constitution exists to protect the people from the government.

So, yes, the schools are hotbeds of liberal indoctrination, and the “mainstream media” does have a liberal bias. They are antiauthoritarian.

There has always been a right-wing illiberal movement in this country that sought to deny or strip away Constitutional protections from some people to create a privileged class. It had different names: slavery, the Confederacy, Jim Crow segregation, the KKK.

There have also been left wing illiberal movements. Left wing illiberalism focuses on denying protection to the privileged class. 

Liberalism seeks equal protection.  

In the late 20th century, the right-wing illiberal movement co-opted evangelicalism, which evolved into the Christian Nationalist movement. Many, including myself, refer to it as White Christian Nationalism because of it’s historical roots and the racist language that leaders in the movement continue to use.

In the early 21st century, protest movements led by left wing factions, which led to real workplace injustices, were exploited by right wing populists to fuel real grievances and convince people that the Left was a threat.

The question we all must ask is: do you believe that all people are created equal and endowed by their creator certain inalienable rights and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

Do you believe that? Who is threatening that and who is trying to protect it?

Lesson Eleven: Investigate. 

This is part 12 of a series inspired by my reading of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons Learned From the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Snyder as part of my effort to offer Christian insight to those wondering what to do in this moment.

Sources:

Season Six of the Truce podcast is an incredible resource. https://trucepodcast.com/

Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart — Again by Robert Kagan. https://www.brookings.edu/people/robert-kagan/

Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies by N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird. https://zondervanacademic.com/jesus-and-the-powers

When The Wolves Came: Evangelicals Resisting Extremism podcast.