Consider

• There was a recent assassination attempt on a former president and current presidential candidate, and we know nothing save the Secret Service failed.
• The current POTUS is unfit for office.
• The current Democratic nominee has not received a vote on the national level in any form, nor, due to California’s jungle primary system, has she ever faced a Republican in an election.
• The entire mess now summed up by a single word – covid.

It is very hard not to think in conspiratorial terms, particularly when it comes to the machinations inside the Democratic party.  Given all the unknowns in these situations it is ever so tempting to fill-in-the-blank with hidden hands and powers behind the curtain.  Yet reason tells me that an actual conspiracy is impossible – too many people are involved; that many people cannot keep a secret.

So how do we explain all of this?  How do we account for this massive, and relatively sudden, erosion of democratic order?

I have contended since we shuttered the nation because we were terrified of a disease about which we knew almost nothing, that the most frightening aspect of that episode was not the government’s efforts to seize power, but the nation’s willingness to go along with it.  But in thinking about that episode, the key lies in that word “terrified.”  Strong emotion overrides reason.

In my Sunday School class, we are studying the history of Christianity.  Yesterday we looked at the role played by Christianity in the downfall of Soviet communism.  The lecturer noted two very salient facts.  One, despots throughout history have had to either compromise religion to their tyranny or offer some substitute religion that is.  Two, efforts to quash faith in the Soviet Union were unsuccessful no matter the type of effort or strategy involved.  This too speaks to the fact that the operation of a nation depends on more than straightforward rationality.

Which leads me to the current state of the presidential race and specifically Kamala Harris’ rise to major party candidacy without virtue of vote or campaign of any sort.  The explanation for this mess must lie in some strong emotion that overrides the very rational conclusion that Kamala Harris’ candidacy is entirely illegitimate. I would posit Trump hatred as that emotion.  I think the term “trump Derangement Syndrome” far too mild – this is a deep, to the point of rage, seething hatred.  The kind of hatred that blinds those cursed with it to all but the destruction of its object.

Now, do not get me wrong, there are people in key potions that are capitalizing on these emotions, but that is politics as usual.  We, the average voters, are the ultimate check-and-balance and therefore this failure is ours.   It is deeply, deeply disturbing that our failure to fulfill that role is rooted in hatred.

The problem with hate is that we seem to recognize everybody’s but our own.  We live in a world full of “Stop Hate” tee shirts.  We have passed laws making hate criminal. Yet we find hate driving the actions of one of the two major political parties in this nation.  Salena Zito notes that Harris’s campaign appearances are heavily orchestrated and never involve the actual public.  On the show this last Friday, Ben Domenech, who was at the DNC, reported that the average delegate was not expressing the kind of enthusiasm that media was showing us.  Such reporting should be a source of hope, and it does indicate that Trump is far more likely to win the election than the media would have us think.  But it also points to the fact that way too many Democrats carry such a distaste for Trump that they are unwilling to protest.

I think what we need here is a parable:

Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Yeah, I think that is the ticket.