The Right Man for the Job
But NOT your savior.
America won a great victory. Yesterday truly felt like a pivotal moment in a long social, political, and cultural battle.
Years and years and millions of dollars of propaganda weren’t enough to make the American people give up on their hopes of a healthier, more vital, more prosperous future, one in which common sense trumps over blatant lies and freedom remains a foundational value.
I’m not American, but as I see my country suffer under the leadership of a lying, corrupt, communist puppet, I can’t help but feel proud of the American people for electing Donald Trump and even a bit jealous for the prosperous future that he’ll usher for his nation.
I think he’s the right man for the job. I think he will do amazing things for the American people, and I’m glad he was elected. I think the coming prosperity and vitality of this new America will rub off on all western countries, hopefully including my own.
There is however, one thing that concerns me, not about him specifically, but about people’s reaction to Trump, on both sides.
Trump as Pure Evil
The screeching left is unfamiliar with nuance, so their reaction to Trump, fueled by intense propaganda, childish movies, and self-hatred is a visceral reaction of absolute disgust. For the left, Donald Trump is nothing less than evil personified.
They are incapable of any kind of charity, and also unwilling to question if maybe Donald Trump could have some goodness in him —this is not the case just for him, but for any enemy of the left, who ends up becoming for them something less than human, a “bad-guy” who needs to be “stopped at all costs”.
The Marvel-brains of the adult children that make up the bulk of the left directs all their hatred towards the “bad-guy” the media tells them to. The natural consequence of this is the dehumanization of whoever they choose as their enemy.
The dangers of this perspective are obvious: look no further than the two assassination attempts he faced. They were a natural consequence of a long process of dehumanization, in which Trump ended up becoming nothing less than pure darkness in the minds of the left, so much so that they felt he deserved to die violently.
Trump as the Savior of Mankind
One side, the “anti-Trump” side, refuses to see him as anything less than pure, manifested evil. This is obviously a very simplistic, and plain wrong position.
But I’ve seen the other side, the “pro-Trump” side, make an equally dangerous mistake, although in a different manner.
We have a strong tendency to idolize those people that we respect and look up to. Trump has become a figure that millions of people have put their hopes in.
The left’s incessant attacks on his person also have meant that many on the right have —understandably so—, come to his defense. But the problem is that many people’s response to the left’s extreme view of Trump is to take an equally extreme position, and idolize him to the point where he’s seen as a savior, incapable of doing anything wrong.
I know this is a meme, but I do think there are many who unconsciously idolize Donald Trump and hold him as the savior of mankind.
The problem with holding this position is twofold. The first, and most obvious one, is that idolizing people deviates you from the righteous path, as all humans are flawed and sinful in various ways.
The second problem is that idolizing a man means putting on his shoulders responsibilities he’ll not be able to fulfill. Many expect absolute perfection from Donald Trump, because, seeing him as the savior of mankind, they hold him to standards that only God can measure up to.
Just like the left tends to dehumanize Trump because he’s a “bad-guy”, the right sometimes tends to idolize him just to “own the libtards”, or simply because they are desperately looking for a savior.
He’s a Man, Here to do a Job
I was talking to my mom about this the other day. She said that while she agreed with his policies and heavily disliked leftism, she couldn’t vote for Trump because she didn’t like certain things about him, like the fact he used to be a playboy, the way he talks about women, or how materialistic he seemed to be. Regardless of whether or not those objections are true, the fact of the matter is this: Donald Trump is just a man, here to do a specific job. He’s not supposed to be perfect. He’s not supposed to be all virtue and no sin, and we shouldn’t expect him to.
Not voting for him or writing him off as a political candidate altogether because of flaws like his behavior towards women, his rash, outspoken ways, his vanity, or anything else that doesn’t directly relate to the job he’s assigned to do is to do him a disservice and expect way too much from someone who’s just as human, just as flawed, and just as sinful as you, me, and all men and women who are not Jesus Christ (and Mary, if you’re Catholic).
If you would only support a candidate who is absolutely perfect, you would never support anyone. A politician is a politician, not a god. Yes, the president of the United States is someone who has incredible power and incredible responsibilities to go along with it, and we should hold him to high standards of behavior. It would be ideal to have a president that was 100% virtuous and 0% sinful, but that will never be the case.
We must remember that. Politicians are there to do a job. So we should judge them according to how well they perform, but we cannot impose extreme, unattainable standards of virtue on them, just like we don’t do that with everyone else in our lives. We don’t expect anyone around us to be perfect, and yet when it comes to politicians, like Trump, we’re ready to write them off for any tiny mistake they make, however unrelated to his ability to perform in his job. This does not mean we should excuse evil and sin, nor that we should vote for someone who clearly goes against Christian values, but it means we should see politicians as people assigned to a specific job, not as deities.
Try to see the big picture behind this article, because it’s not only about Trump, he’s just the most relevant example right now. But the point I’m making applies to all humans, whether they be gurus, political figures, entrepreneurs, mentors. People are people: evil, sinful, damaged in various degrees.
As Christians, we need to hold ourselves to a high standard of morality and virtue. And it’s obviously okay to promote virtue and to want those who hold positions of leadership to showcase superior virtue and morality. But we also need to cut them some slack and remember that they are just people, here to do a specific job. This doesn’t mean we should be permissive of sin in them, it simply means the standards of charity and forgiveness we give to all men have to apply to politicians too.
I encourage you to maintain nuance, and look at each human as a human.
Not as a devil, and not as a savior.
With that being said, I trust that the next 4 years, with the help of President Trump, will be amazing for the entire western world.
God bless you and God bless America!
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Excellent work. I'm certainly happy to see Trump back in office, as he should've been in 2020, but I'm well aware of his faults and limitations. As a Catholic, I see his two biggest errors, and perhaps his only errors policy-wise, as his approval of homosexuality and his limited permission of abortion (other issues like contraception and pornography are rarely even brought up). But, compared to the democrat alternatives, and even most republicans, he's a Godsend - and much more entertaining than any politician, if nothing else, since he thinks and acts like a normal American instead of a bureaucrat.
Straight to the point!
Nailed it!