What the Endorsement of Donald Trump by Phyllis Schlafly says about the state of Evangelicalism

I really don’t like to delve into politics unless I have to. It feels dirty to write this post in some ways, and I really find this particular election cycle depressing. However, there are times when politics intersect with faith in a way that warrants a closer look, and this is one of the occasions.

Late in December, Donald Trump gained an interesting endorsement. Phyllis Schlafly, long of Concerned Women for America and the Eagle Forum, came out in favor of Trump. It isn’t just the endorsement itself, but the “why” of the endorsement that I find troubling.

First, some background on Trump. I grew up in the 1980s, when Trump first came to the attention of the world as an obnoxious trust fund baby with the morals and values of a Gordon Gekko. His serial marriages to a string of Eastern European beauties younger than himself was legendary - as was his bragging about his adultery and disdain for his ex-wives.

As far as that goes, nothing much has changed, from his insulting statements about his ex-wives to his creepy “I’d sleep with her if she wasn’t my daughter” quip.

And that’s before you get to his creative use of bankruptcies to enrich himself at the expense of his creditors; his slander of African Americans, Hispanics, women, and people with disabilities; and his disconnect from actual facts about pretty much everything. And it’s not like he stands for some conservative principle. More like raw arrogance, power, and violence. Disagree with him, well, he’d like to punch you in the face. 

And then there is the narcissism. Good lord! He’s transparently self absorbed and arrogant, even for a politician.

Honestly, I doubted that I would see another serious presidential candidate exceed the sleeze factor of Bill Clinton. (I’m sorry, hitting on 20-year-old interns is sleazy.) That this candidate would become a front runner among Evangelicals is astounding. I mean, the GOP tried to impeach Clinton on the basis of his affairs and the lies he told about them, and now someone even slimier may well be their nominee? What gives? 

Furthermore, there is nothing remotely Christian about him or his worldview - something Evangelicals have claimed for decades was an important factor in choosing a leader. 

I had a pretty good idea before the Schlafly endorsement as to what was going on here, but I didn’t think it warranted a post. After all, most of us have that 5% of friends, family, and acquaintances who are just a little off. Uncle Fred, who makes racist comments at Thanksgiving. Aunt Edna, who waxes nostalgic about the good old days before the wetbacks arrived. You know the sort.

But for a major player in the Religious Right to go over to someone so personally opposed to the morals and values the Religious Right has claimed to stand for all these years is a big deal.

Even more shocking is that her reason for endorsing him matches what every single person who I know who has endorsed Trump has given as the reason.

Any guesses?

“The rich guys are putting the money in. They want to bring in the low-wage people. That’s the way they think they’ll make money,” she said. “But that’s not the way America will prosper. America was built because we had a great growing and prosperous middle class. We need to rebuild that again. I’m willing to give a new try to somebody else.”

That’s right. It’s the low-income brown skinned people who are ruining America! If we could just be white and middle class again…

Even worse, she has said Trump is the “last hope for America.” So, if we can’t keep America white, it is the end for us? I’m pretty darn sure that is what she means.

In fact, the central theme of the Trump campaign is one of White Nationalism. Many have pointed out (correctly) that Trump is running the most explicitly racist campaign since George Wallace in 1968. (His inauguration speech as governor included the infamous words, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.”)

That’s why it is of interest to me who the Trump supporters of my acquaintance are. Things they have in common: all consider themselves Christian, all are white, and all support Trump because he will deport the Mexicans.

Statistically, too, the supporters who drove the Trump bandwagon before others jumped on were overwhelmingly white, and 85% over the age of 45.

Just an aside, most of the GOP candidates are to some degree opposed to immigration, but Trump took it to a new level. His supporters, from what I can tell, want all undocumented immigrants deported immediately, even if they came to the US as infants. And also that we shut the border, allowing zero immigration from Mexico, legal or otherwise. Oh, and force Mexico to pay for it.

Here’s a fairly representative quote, from Michelle Goldberg’s piece on Trump.

I sat next to John Jensen, a 70-year-old farmer. He’s an ultraconservative, but when I asked whether he was bothered by Trump’s record on abortion and gay marriage, he said, “That’s Mickey Mouse stuff compared to what’s really going on in this country. We’re $20 trillion in debt. We got aliens all over the place. I harvest wheat out west, and all the little towns are full of aliens.” 

See, just like Schlafly, he believes the biggest problem facing America right now is that there are just too damn many brown skinned people here, and they are the reason we are in debt. The reason for all our problems. Those people are. 

Fear. Fear of losing economic and social privilege. We no longer have the power and wealth we used to. It must be the fault of someone else. Someone who looks different from us. It is those people who need to go.

(Does this sound a bit too familiar to students of history? Hmm.) 

The reason I think this has something to say about Evangelicalism is this: it’s not just that Trump has strong support from a significant percentage of Evangelicals.. True, he is, and continues to be, the most popular candidate, and his approval rating among Evangelicals remains disturbingly high.

However, many Evangelicals also loathe Trump, so this isn’t a clear-cut issue. 

The fact that Ted Cruz and his longstanding connection to the Lunatic Right (such as Kevin Swanson and Glenn Beck), a faux-historian, David Barton, who tells outright lies, and the Christian Reconstructionist movement is the other popular Evangelical candidate is something I find equally disturbing - if less surprising.

What is more telling, in my opinion, is that a nakedly racist appeal - one that seems to me and others like me - to be completely contrary to the teachings of Christ - can be embraced by a luminary within Evangelicalism, and there isn’t really any horror.

I have seen plenty of posts warning that Trump doesn’t really meet the ultimate Religious Right litmus test (abortion), but pretty much zero horrified about his White Nationalism.

Well, maybe this is understandable, since calling for the deportation of Mexicans appears to have become its own purity test within the GOP these days. (Good grief, how much the GOP has moved to the right since I was a kid...)

Not just that, but I have gotten embroiled in several heated conversations about the issue of immigration and refugees, and it has been so disappointing at how many “Christians” are passionately opposed to any immigration. Legal or illegal, but particularly no more Muslims or Mexicans.

And I still can’t get an answer as to how that position fulfills “love your neighbor as yourself.” Instead, I have been told how tired they are of people questioning their religious beliefs. Oh really? Can’t take the heat? Or is Stephen Colbert (a devout Catholic) right about this?

There are arguments on both sides of the question as to whether immigration is a net benefit to the United States or not. I believe one can come to a logical conclusion either way and maintain intellectual honesty.

But what isn’t really disputable is whether immigration benefits the immigrant. Particularly in the easy case of the person brought here as an infant. That person would clearly suffer if deported. So how is that being loving? The answer is that it isn’t. Sorry. You can’t just wiggle out of that one.

(By the way, arguing with these people is much like arguing with Doug Wilson supporters. Even though everyone outside the bubble can see that he is a White Supremacist who defends slavery, they won’t actually admit he is racist.)

Returning to what this says about the state of Evangelicalism, here is the question:

Why is there no outcry about the endorsement of Trump? There surely would be if Schlafly had endorsed someone who was pro-gay-marriage. There probably would be if she had endorsed someone who was “moderate” by GOP standards. But naked racism is okay? 

She has just endorsed the same candidate as KKK leader David Duke - for the very same reasons. And the silence is deafening.  

Shouldn’t the continued popularity of Trump cause some soul-searching as to the spiritual state of Evangelicalism? 

One common statement many have made about why they support Trump is “He says what everyone is thinking, but are too afraid to say.”

That’s a scary thought, because apparently what a great many people are thinking is unvarnished racism and White Nationalism, anger, fear, and hate.

I can only conclude that this is the result of decades of spiritual malpractice. For too long, “Christian Morality” has been defined as sexual rules, gender roles, white middle class culture, and - of course - abortion. As long as you get those right, you can be as greedy, selfish, materialistic, and power-worshiping as you like, and nobody will make you uncomfortable. Put a rainbow on your profile picture, and all hell breaks loose. Suggest that the last hope for Christendom lies in the material prosperity of the white middle class - and call for the removal of low income brown skinned people - as if there was anything remotely Christlike about that...and...crickets.

***

Just a couple of observations:

1. Schlafly illustrates the fact that for a significant portion of the Religious Right, “Christianity” looks like 1950s Middle-class white culture. A time when [white] men could support a family on one income, and the wife was at home with the kids, cooking and cleaning in heels and pearls. That’s why the “greatest threat” to America turns out to be brown skinned people who (allegedly) lowered wages for white males, so that they couldn’t support a family on a single income. (Leaving aside other issues, like the decline of private-sector unions, and the mechanization of manufacturing, which Schlafly doesn’t appear to believe are potential causes of declining wages. Nope, just the brown people.)

   

It never even occurs to Schlafly that the people she wants to keep out are seeking to be able to have a decent life for themselves. Their goals and welfare don’t matter, just the “real” Americans.

2.     I wish more people were aware of the origins of the Religious Right as a political force. The primary sources for Paul Weyrich’s account of the rise of the Right as we know it are readily available online. This article from Politico gives a decent summary.

If you actually look at history, the original political goal was the protection of the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University and others who wished to remain segregated after the Civil Rights Act. So yes, it was in fact Segregation which united the Religious Right. And now it has come full circle, it appears, with many of the original players (Schlafly, Liberty University, the younger Jerry Falwell, and so on) going for a White Nationalist candidate.

3.     We can no longer plausibly deny that white Evangelicalism is plagued with deep-rooted racism. As it is, the lack of outrage that there will be no justice for 12 year old Tamar Rice is telling, and many of us found the white Evangelical response to Ferguson to be appalling for its lack of compassion and outright racism. But the embrace of Trump has really brushed away any remaining pretence. When push comes to shove, racism wins over any moral considerations. Not to discount the existence of racism in younger people, because it exists there too, but statistically, the White Nationalist push is coming from Evangelical Baby Boomers. There are a number of reasons why young people are fleeing the church. But this is one reason.

4.     My prediction: If (when?) Trump becomes the GOP nominee, you will see the vast majority of Evangelicals vote for and support him. In part because he will have an (R) next to his name. But also because the vast majority of Evangelicals have become single issue voters. Because the candidate with the (D) will not be calling for the outlawing of abortion, they will “hold their noses and vote for Trump.” And an increasing number of the next generation will be wondering exactly why they should take Evangelicalism seriously when it comes to morality.  

5.     Maybe one reason we Evangelicals have embraced a narcissist peddling a message of hate and greed is that we have all too often embraced narcisistic celebrity religious leaders who preach the same message. And not just the Prosperity Gospel sorts either. Mark Driscoll, C. J. Mahaney, Doug Wilson, Doug Phillips, Bill Gothard...

***

I linked this above, but I think it is well worth reading. (Hat tip to a relative for sending this my way.) 

Donald Trump Embodies What's Wrong with American Religion

Money quotes: 

When religion enters politics, politics can more easily adopt the mask of religion. Deep theological and moral traditions of reflection can be usurped by a shallow civil religion that carries not a touch of the prophetic power or ethical formation that Christianity or Islam or Judaism holds. American civil religion is the religion of Americanism, commandeering the rhetoric of piety for the sake of simplistic nationalism and selfish indulgence.

The problem with civil religion is that it has no moral core, and when put under the pressure of a polarized culture it can become very uncivil. Trump lashes out against migrants and American Muslims, not because they are a real threat, but because they are culturally weak; they are convenient minorities, relatively powerless targets of American incivility and rage.

***

I should have included this earlier, but better late than never. While I applaud Max Lucado for acknowledging that Trump lacks common decency, his article has several glaring omissions. 

Decency for President

First of all, note that he mentions that Trump has insulted women and people with disabilities. 

Note what he did NOT mention: That Trump has also insulted African Americans, Hispanics, and Muslims. 

Why didn't you mention that, Max? 

Also, why didn't you mention at all that Trump's biggest problem is that his campaign is based on racism? Can you not say "racist" and still keep your audience? 

***

Before commenting, please read my comment policy.

In particular, I will not tolerate racist comments. If you cannot explain how your policy regarding people different from you actually benefits them, I’m deleting your comment. The majority voice within Evangelicalism right now is already that of white supremacism and xenophobia. I’m not giving you a platform.

Likewise, I will delete any comments which endorse any candidate.

Mudshark by Gary Paulsen

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

Not too long ago, I thought of Gary Paulsen as the realistic and unflinching author of the Hatchet books. (Reviewed here and here.) But it turns out that he has been a prolific writer over the last 25 years, and his range is much greater than I had supposed. Apparently, he wasn’t a one-hit wonder. Likewise, serious writing was not his only strength. He has a delightful sense of humor of just the right type to appeal to kids not easily grossed out. Like, say, my kids.

Over our Christmas trip, we enjoyed Masters of Disaster, so we decided to try Mudshark for our recent camping trip. 

Like Masters of Disaster, Mudshark is a relatively short book, clocking in at about two hours on audiobook. It was also a hit with the kids.

The basic premise is this: Lyle Williams, aka “Mudshark,” is a middle-schooler who got his nickname after a game of “Death Ball,” a local game which sounds quite a bit like the way soccer was once played. The author describes it as a cross between soccer, rugby, football, and a mud fight. The entire town takes it quite seriously, despite - or perhaps because of - the fact that the school has outlawed it. With lightning reflexes honed keeping his toddler triplet sisters out of harm’s way, he saves a goal faster than human vision can follow. Mudshark isn’t just athletic, though. He lives by his quick wits and his excellent memory. Can’t find something? Mudshark probably knows where it is. Need help solving a problem? Call Mudshark. In an interesting spin on real-life playground politics, it turns out the nerdy kid who doesn’t care about popularity ends up being cool.

Things start to go sideways, however, when the librarian gets a talking parrot, whose powers of observation prove to be serious competition for Mudshark. And then the erasers in every classroom start to go missing. This ends up being Mudshark’s toughest case yet.

A number of things brought snickers from my kids, from the little girls to the logarithmic multiplication of crawfish in the school’s ill-fated “animals in the classroom” experiment. And the escaped gerbil who seems intent on terrorizing the 8th Grade English teacher.

But the most popular, by unanimous vote (yes, I took a poll), was the introductions to each chapter. They all start the same way, with an announcement over the school’s PA system.

“Will the custodian please report to the faculty restroom with…”

And then follows an ever-escalating list of needed implements. Starting with “a plunger and a mop,” then “a plank” and eventually “a Geiger counter and a hazmat suit.” One is left to wonder exactly what was going on there, and how a bunch of teachers ended up getting the Department of Homeland Security and various environmental agencies called out to deal with a toilet emergency.  

Of course, this joke does work better if one has kids that actually know what one would do with a Geiger counter. In fact, though, one thing I do like about Paulsen’s writing is that he balances the need to write at the level of his intended readers with an ability to do so without dumbing stuff down. He assumes kids are intelligent and educated even as he stretches their scientific knowledge.

Mudshark isn’t intended to be deep literature or anything, but it is an entertaining tale, and one that subtly pushes Paulsen’s view that there is nothing shameful or uncool about learning and reading and paying attention. I’d say Paulsen writes about boys really well, and it is true, but girls too will find his humorous books enjoyable as well.

Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg

Source of book: I own this.

I figure anyone who has been through any kind of American schooling has had to read two Carl Sandburg poems: “Fog” and “Chicago.” Everyone knows them a little, even if few could quote them on demand. However, the acquaintance usually stops there, in my experience. I decided to read the complete Chicago Poems to fill this gap in my knowledge. It also seemed fitting since it was published exactly 100 years ago this year.

Chicago Poems contains the title poem, of course, the listing of the ways the poet views the city as he experienced it in the second decade of the Twentieth Century.

My particular collection of Sandburg has almost all of Chicago Poems. Two are missing. A quick search of the internet revealed why. One is called “Nigger,” and contains some unfortunate stereotypes. The other is “The Has-Been,” which contains the slang “niggerhead” for a mudball. So basically, these were deemed offensive, and left out without explanation. Whatever. I read them online, and didn’t find them essential or the best of the bunch.

Here are some of the poems that caught my attention as particularly good.

“Halsted Street Car”

COME you, cartoonists,       

Hang on a strap with me here       

At seven o’clock in the morning       

On a Halsted street car.               

Take your pencils        

And draw these faces.  

Try with your pencils for these crooked faces,

That pig-sticker in one corner—his mouth—

That overall factory girl—her loose cheeks.  

            

Find for your pencils        

A way to mark your memory             

Of tired empty faces.               

After their night’s sleep,             

In the moist dawn             

And cool daybreak,   

Faces             

Tired of wishes,      

Empty of dreams.

A theme that runs through the book is that of the workers, exhausted by long hours, hungry from low wages that don’t cover rent and enough food for the family, and unable to rise beyond the need for survival. And yet, they are not just types, but actual people.

“Passers-by”

PASSERS-BY,

Out of your many faces

Flash memories to me

Now at the day end

Away from the sidewalks

Where your shoe soles traveled

And your voices rose and blent

To form the city’s afternoon roar

Hindering an old silence.   

Passers-by,     

I remember lean ones among you,

Throats in the clutch of a hope,

Lips written over with strivings,

Mouths that kiss only for love.

Records of great wishes slept with,       

Held long And prayed and toiled for..       

Yes,

Written on

Your mouths

And your throats

I read them

When you passed by.

Some of Sandburg’s observations made me smile. Like this one.

“Happiness”

I ASKED the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness.

And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men.

They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them

And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Desplaines river

And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.

Perhaps a bit of a kindred spirit with Tchaikovsky who prefaced the final movement of his 4th Symphony (based on  Russian folk song) with “If you cannot find reasons for happiness in yourself, look at others. Get out among the people.…Oh, how gay they are!…Life is bearable after all.”

And yet, it is these “commoners” that the wealthy then - and now - are most eager to escape.

“A Fence”

NOW the stone house on the lake front is finished and the workmen are beginning the fence. The palings are made of iron bars with steel points that can stab the life out of any man who falls on them.

As a fence, it is a masterpiece, and will shut off the rabble and all vagabonds and hungry men and all wandering children looking for a place to play.

Passing through the bars and over the steel points will go nothing except Death and the Rain and To-morrow.

The neighborhood I grew up in - and the one I live in now - are kind of “old school” now. The kind where anyone can drive in. Now, it seems, so many are “gated communities.” Have a pass code, or stay out. And their own little private parks where their children can play without fear of poor kids rocking their world. Sorry. Pet peeve. Kind of up there with the tendency so many have to fight low income housing (or even apartments) in their neighborhood. Best to shut off all the rabble. Love this poem.

This one is a favorite as well:

“Style”

STYLE—go ahead talking about style.

You can tell where a man gets his style just as you can tell where Pavlowa got her legs or Ty Cobb his batting eye.       

Go on talking.

Only don’t take my style away.       

It’s my face.       

Maybe no good           

but anyway,

my face.

I talk with it, I sing with it, I see, taste and feel with it, I know why I want to keep it.   

Kill my style             

and you break Pavlowa’s legs,        

and you blind Ty Cobb’s batting eye.

It’s almost as if Sandburg could have anticipated the arguments about style in professional sports, which have a strong element of race and class in them. (Looking at you, Cam Newton…)

Another one which struck me as interesting was this one, which is essentially one big line. The form is interesting, but also the sentiment. Sandburg, like me, believed the arts elevate, and make one more human.

“Bath”

A MAN saw the whole world as a grinning skull and cross-bones. The rose flesh of life shriveled from all faces. Nothing counts. Everything is a fake. Dust to dust and ashes to ashes and then an old darkness and a useless silence. So he saw it all. Then he went to a Mischa Elman concert. Two hours waves of sound beat on his eardrums. Music washed something or other inside him. Music broke down and rebuilt something or other in his head and heart. He joined in five encores for the young Russian Jew with the fiddle. When he got outside his heels hit the sidewalk a new way. He was the same man in the same world as before. Only there was a singing fire and a climb of roses everlastingly over the world he looked on.

The final one that I include here is this one.

“To A Contemporary Bunkshooter”

YOU come along … tearing your shirt … yelling about Jesus.     

Where do you get that stuff?     

What do you know about Jesus?

Jesus had a way of talking soft and outside of a few bankers and higher-ups among the con men of Jerusalem everybody liked to have this Jesus around because he never made any fake passes and everything he said went and he helped the sick and gave the people hope.   

You come along squirting words at us, shaking your fist and calling us all dam fools so fierce the froth slobbers over your lips… always blabbing we’re all going to hell straight off and you know all about it.  

I’ve read Jesus’ words. I know what he said. You don’t throw any scare into me. I’ve got your number. I know how much you know about Jesus.

He never came near clean people or dirty people but they felt cleaner because he came along. It was your crowd of bankers and business men and lawyers hired the sluggers and murderers who put Jesus out of the running.   

I say the same bunch backing you nailed the nails into the hands of this Jesus of Nazareth. He had lined up against him the same crooks and strong-arm men now lined up with you paying your way.   

This Jesus was good to look at, smelled good, listened good. He threw out something fresh and beautiful from the skin of his body and the touch of his hands wherever he passed along.

You slimy bunkshooter, you put a smut on every human blossom in reach of your rotten breath belching about hell-fire and hiccupping about this Man who lived a clean life in Galilee.  

When are you going to quit making the carpenters build emergency hospitals for women and girls driven crazy with wrecked nerves from your gibberish about Jesus—I put it to you again: Where do you get that stuff; what do you know about Jesus?   

Go ahead and bust all the chairs you want to. Smash a whole wagon load of furniture at every performance. Turn sixty somersaults and stand on your nutty head. If it wasn’t for the way you scare the women and kids I’d feel sorry for you and pass the hat.

I like to watch a good four-flusher work, but not when he starts people puking and calling for the doctors.

I like a man that’s got nerve and can pull off a great original performance, but you—you’re only a bug-house peddler of second-hand gospel—you’re only shoving out a phoney imitation of the goods this Jesus wanted free as air and sunlight.   

You tell people living in shanties Jesus is going to fix it up all right with them by giving them mansions in the skies after they’re dead and the worms have eaten ’em.  

You tell $6 a week department store girls all they need is Jesus; you take a steel trust wop, dead without having lived, gray and shrunken at forty years of age, and you tell him to look at Jesus on the cross and he’ll be all right.

You tell poor people they don’t need any more money on pay day and even if it’s fierce to be out of a job, Jesus’ll fix that up all right, all right—all they gotta do is take Jesus the way you say.

I’m telling you Jesus wouldn’t stand for the stuff you’re handing out. Jesus played it different. The bankers and lawyers of Jerusalem got their sluggers and murderers to go after Jesus just because Jesus wouldn’t play their game. He didn’t sit in with the big thieves.   

I don’t want a lot of gab from a bunkshooter in my religion.

I won’t take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth and never cherishes any memory except the face of the woman on the American silver dollar.

I ask you to come through and show me where you’re pouring out the blood of your life.   

I’ve been to this suburb of Jerusalem they call Golgotha, where they nailed Him, and I know if the story is straight it was real blood ran from His hands and the nail-holes, and it was real blood spurted in red drops where the spear of the Roman soldier rammed in between the ribs of this Jesus of Nazareth.

This one affected me strongly. It contains some things I have wanted to say so many times, but never more than during the Ferguson protests. A bunch of well-meaning Christian friends spouted off with this whole “they all just need Jesus” bullcrap.

I can guarantee you that they weren’t meaning it in the sense of “Jesus needs to make the wealthy and middle class people who have used the justice system to loot and harass the poor realize that they have done evil, so they will stop looting and harassing and give back their ill-gotten gains.”

Chances are, the meaning was more “If those damn black people would just get saved, they would stop whining and protesting.”

Because, think about it, the oppression and looting and harassment and police brutality existed before, and continues to exist around our nation after the protests. But nobody bothered about it until there was social unrest, and suddenly “they need Jesus.” Hmm.

I wrote a bit more on Ferguson here, and included a link to the original Justice Department report, which should be required reading.

Sandburg’s point, though, is well taken. When you are preaching a “Jesus” that turns a blind eye to oppression, and supports the wealthy and self-righteous, you aren’t preaching the real Jesus, who sent John the Baptist’s followers back with this report: “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” And the one who said “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.” And the one who said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

The “gospel” isn’t a bludgeon to get the oppressed to shut up, but a ringing challenge to love your neighbor as yourself.

It is hard to read these poems without noticing that they caught a spirit - and a time - that resembles our own. Sandburg was a socialist, at a time when it legitimately seemed as if the United States might in fact turn socialist - or even communist. (As a matter of fact, the Bolsheviks at one time believed it was only a matter of time until the United States joined them. The reasons why this was, and why the revolution did not come to pass are fascinating.

In the second half of the Nineteenth Century, a number of notable events and changes took place. With the end of slavery and the industrial revolution, a shift in employment began away from agriculture (which now required fewer workers) and toward urban employment. This change continues today, around the world. More unique to the United States was the era of the Robber Barons. If you want to read a tale of corruption even more sordid than modern corporate-influenced politics, I recommend Railroaded, by Richard White. As that book noted, if you put together all the free land the Federal Government gave the railroads, it would make a state larger than either Texas or California, smaller only than Alaska. This in addition to the interest-free loans, many of which were not repaid. And then the big wheels looted the railroad corporations, enriching themselves at the expense of the smaller investors and creditors. (Just one of many reasons I laugh when anyone claims the world is more evil now than in the Victorian Era. I am calling serious bullcrap on that.) This led, naturally, to great inequality - and a lot of hardship for the ordinary workers who were then exploited by the giant corporations.

Just for perspective, when you adjust for inflation, of the 30 most wealthy Americans in history, 22 of them made their fortunes during the Gilded Age. And these men (yes, they were all men, of course) used their money to buy off elected officials in ways that would be shocking to us now in their refusal to even pretend they weren’t buying votes.

In the aftermath of this inequality, corruption, and exploitation, there were many calls for a fundamental change to the economic and political systems of the nation. A call for socialism was one of the ways this manifested itself.

So what headed off the revolution? While there were undoubtedly too many reasons to point to a single one as “the” cause, it is generally agreed that the United States - and most of the Western world - did in fact make fundamental changes to the system. It was these changes which removed the chief cause that there was a call for revolution in the first place. The changes were not immediate, and they were affected by two world wars, but they eventually came.

These changes included the rise of labor unions, which provided a counterbalance to the power of the rich and powerful employers. And also wage and hour laws, the abolition of child labor, and workplace safety laws, which help re-balance the lopsided employer-employee relationship. The New Deal put a safety net in place to help make a job loss less catastrophic, enabling more employees to speak up without fear of starvation.

It wasn’t just the government and unions, though. Individuals also took initiative. Whether from altruism or from a realization that momentum was building toward a revolution which would not be kind to them, some of the Robber Barons - or their descendants in some cases - decided to use a significant portion of their wealth for the public good. Leland Stanford founded a university, others sponsored libraries and the arts. Others founded charities of various sorts. It became popular - and expected - that the top 1% owed something to everyone else. Still others, like Henry Ford, changed the nature of employment, by choosing to pay his employees enough so they could buy his cars.

In essence, the social contract was changed. And, by the 1950s post-war boom, living standards for working class people had risen substantially.

This relieved the pressure that led to the call for revolution. After all, if one could get a better deal without it, it wasn’t necessary.

Now admittedly, things didn’t get better for everyone. As I noted in this post, it would still take a few decades until Jim Crow was ended. But for enough people, things did indeed improve. The United States has never returned to the days of workers being treated as expendable lives like they were in the Gilded Age.

However, some of the same pressures are building again now, and you can see it in the way that Millennials are leaning socialist. That is the topic for another post, but you can at least see increasing inequality (with a stratification by age in the mix as well), decreasing real wages, soaring costs for education and health care (and that’s before you get to the cost of housing), corporate control of elections, the decline of private-sector unions, and so on. It is only natural - and I would add just - that there is again a call to renegotiate the social contract.

I blogged about the way that “Communism” and “Atheism” have been conflated. Another unfortunate conflation is “Socialism” and the redistribution of wealth. It is the sort of thing that mistakes, say, France with North Korea. Everyone knows that subsidized post-secondary education is just one step away from the Gulags. Or something like that.

Again, a bit beyond the scope of this post, which has already gone a bit afield.

But the point is that, instead of just saying “young people are more evil because they support socialism,” perhaps a better plan would be to look at the underlying realities that create the pressure for revolution. Communism didn’t happen because people were atheists or evil. It happened as a response to genuine problems and injustices. Whether it the cure was worse than the disease is another matter. It doesn’t change the fact that if the underlying problems are not corrected, drastic treatment will often be attempted.

So just a word to conservative Boomers: Maybe instead of complaining about how bad Millennials are, or blaming it all on the brown skinned people, perhaps you might figure out how to renegotiate the social contract - like our ancestors did 100 years ago - in a way that reduces the inequality in wealth and power. It’s a thought.

One of the reasons I love reading works from the past is that it gives perspective. Very few things are new under the sun. From the days of the prophet Isaiah (and before, I am sure), there has been the call for justice. For a social contract which protects the vulnerable, and not the wealthy and powerful.

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-- when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

Sandburg captures the past, but also a universal truth. The value of our religion or philosophy or ethical framework isn’t measured by our hellfire or platitudes or neat little system of thought. In the end, it comes down to how we choose, whether at the ballot box or in our sermons or in our giving. Do we side with the powerful, or with the powerless? If our Jesus is just there to tell the poor to stop whining while we sit at our desks and eat our fill while calling for lower wages, well, I’m with Sandburg. I don’t want a lot of gab from a bunkshooter in my religion.