Opinion: The left was about salvation. The right is about the end times.
By Michael Gerson Michael Gerson Columnist Email Bio Follow Columnist March 18 at 5:28 PM As politics has become a religion in so many lives, political discourse has taken on theological overtones. I am not referring to President Trump’s accusation of a “witch hunt,” which places the FBI in the role of Puritan divines. This is merely an absurd metaphor.
More recently, however, the populist right has taken on a distinctively religious tone. Rather than offering a vision of salvation, it has embraced a certain eschatology — a theory of the end times. The threat of liberalism, in this view, has become so dire that the wrong outcome of a presidential race could mean the end of U.S. civilization. One appalling defense of Trump dubbed 2016 the “Flight 93 election,” on the theory that conservatives have but two choices: “charge the cockpit” or “die.
In this light, the attraction of so many evangelicals to the cause of Trump makes more sense. Before the Civil War, many evangelical Christians held a postmillennial eschatology. They believed that society, through acts of mercy and grace, would become better and better, eventually ushering in the benevolent rule of Christ.
There are serious dangers to the cultivation of desperation. It transforms opponents into enemies. It turns compromise into heresy. And it paves the way for authoritarian thinking and measures.
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