Election and Redemption

I watched election night unfold that November 8, stress eating gummy bears and slowly sinking into despair as swing state after swing state went red.  I watched with one eye on the t.v. and one eye on twitter where the many people of color that I follow lamented the results.  I lamented with them.  

I know not all were lamenting.  I know that for many this was a victory, a win for the Republican party.  For me this was not about Republican and Democrats.  While I’ve voted for Democratic Presidential candidates, I’ve voted for both Republicans and Democrats in other positions.  My dad was an elected Republican official in our town.  Until this election I would have said I was an Independent who leaned left, or, a fiscally conservative, socially liberal Independent.  This election felt different.  Donald Trump felt different.

I won’t go into all the ways he made my stomach turn during the election.  The examples are well documented.  I will say that as a person who has cared an awful lot about social justice through out my adult life, Trump’s rhetoric and complete lack of self-awareness has felt dangerous and just down right wrong.

In the weeks immediately following the election I wandered around in a state of anxiety and fear.  The news reports of hate crimes committed in Trump’s name and Neo Nazi groups celebrations of his victory did nothing to assuage this.  

And then, through it all, there were Christian leaders joyously celebrating his victory, saying it was ordained by God.

This, of course, caused me to simultaneously throw things and deeply question my understanding of God.  The God I have known, the one that has made my heart worship, was on the side of justice for the oppressed, was against bigotry and prejudice, promoted goodness and kindness and humility.  That God was not found in Trump.  At least to me.

When swastikas were showing up across the country bearing the words “Trump’s America” alongside them, it felt hard to believe that God would ordain this.  When people of color were shoved and intimidated and told it was time to “go home!  This is Trump’s America now!” it was hard to believe that God would ordain that.  And when hundreds were detained at the airport, and refugees, the most vulnerable among us, were turned away, it was hard to believe that the God who very specifically says to welcome the refugee stranger would ordain that. 

But then something else started to happen.  There was a march, attended by millions all across the world.  People stepped up, who wanted to say, no, this is not ok and I’m standing on the side of justice.  There were reports of people stepping in, standing up when people of color were being targeted for hate crimes.

  

Signs started popping up all around my neighborhood.  Signs that said, “We are not afraid” in regard to refugees and signs in three different languages, Hispanic, Arabic and English that said, “No matter what language you speak, we’re glad to call you neighbor.”  Signs that gave me hope.

In our suburban town a refugee relief organization held an introductory meeting to people who wanted to get involved by helping refugee families transition to America.  I heard one report that over a thousand people showed up for the meeting.

And then there was this report.  On a subway in Manhattan someone had graffitied Swastikas and other hateful messages on every advertisement and window.  People on the subway were uncomfortably aware of this and unsure of how to act.  Someone knew that alcohol erased permanent marker and soon an entire subway car full of New Yorkers were taking out their hand sanitizer and tissues and erasing the crap out of those hateful messages. 

Trump, it seems, has made activists of us all.  More and more people are asking themselves tough questions, paying attention to injustice and bigotry and standing up for the vulnerable, oppressed and marginalized.  

And it’s working.  I saw this on twitter and I hope very much that it is true.

Over the weekend, as I reflected on all the ways good people are standing up for truth and justice I wondered if maybe God was behind Trump’s win after all.  Not because Trump and his ideals embody what God wants for our broken world but because Trump and his ideals gave the rest of us something to fight against for our broken world.  It moved us to action in a way that his win would not have.  On the day of his inauguration in a text conversation with some friends I said, “If he hadn’t won we wouldn’t be marching tomorrow, but the things, the beliefs, the injustice that gave him so much popularity and put people in the position to overlook it all for a political party would still be there tomorrow.  Now we know where we stand and which side we want to stand on.  It was hard to fight the things we collectively, as a society, tried to pretend weren’t there at all.  You can’t fight the things you’re keeping hidden.  Now it’s out there and in some weird way I’m actually thankful for that.” 

And maybe that was what was ordained by God.  The stripping of the false security we all gave ourselves that we were a post racial society.  Or the sense that there wasn’t any work left to be done.  The calling of arms of people who may never considered themselves activists.  People all over the world are saying, not on my watch.

I don’t know if God ordained Trump’s victory.  I don’t know that I can go that far, or speak in that way by God.  But I do know that it is just like God to take brokenness and pain and use it for redemption.  I do know that what broke in our society on November 8, 2016, is being redeemed in a hundred thousand ways since then.  And I, for one, am excited to take part with God in this redeeming work.