Evidently timed to coincide with the heating up of the presidential race, a movie called Civil War made its debut in theaters across the country in March. It is premised on the fantastic notion of Texas and California teaming up to wage war against a usurping three-term president. But although Americans are far removed from anything like that, extreme divisiveness truly is part of our current national life as reflected in our politics.
One source of that sour mood can be seen in poll numbers showing majorities unhappy with the choice they almost certainly will face in November between President Joe Biden and ex-President Donald Trump. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research sampling found 56% more or less dissatisfied with Biden as the Democratic candidate and 58% feeling the same about Trump heading the GOP ticket.
Some of this negativism presumably arises from concern about the two men’s ages. By January 2029, when the president—whether Biden or Trump—is concluding his term, Biden will be 86 and Trump will be 82. And with all due respect to octogenarians, it’s reasonable to question whether someone in his eighties can handle the intense demands of the presidency.
Age is hardly the only issue in this election, though. Inflation will be much discussed. And unlike elections when neither party seemed eager to talk about abortion, this time it’s much on the minds of candidates and voters.
Trump takes credit for naming three new Supreme Court justices who made up part of the majority that two years ago overturned the infamous Roe v. Wade decision. But he opposes a national law setting a point in pregnancy after which abortion wouldn’t be allowed and says the whole issue should be left to states to settle for themselves.
Biden and the Democrats for their part intend to highlight their support for abortion as a central element of their message wherever abortion has strong public approval.
Recently, Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington caused a stir by criticizing Biden for his position on abortion. Responding to a questioner on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” he called Biden, a Catholic, “very sincere about his faith” but added that on “life issues” he is a “cafeteria Catholic” who accepts some Church teachings and rejects others to suit his political advantage.
Meanwhile predictable bickering is underway over the presidential debates, currently scheduled for September 16, October 1, and October 9. In mid-April more than a dozen news organizations, including the Associated Press and five major broadcast and cable networks, called on the two presumptive candidates to commit themselves to participating in the debates, which it said have “no substitute” for letting people know where candidates stand.
Here, though, I’m a dissenter. Yes, people like debates, but the debate format is of doubtful value in learning whether participants possess the qualities that make for a good president..
What the presidency requires above all is prudence—the ability consistently to make morally good choices in pursuit of morally good ends. As philosopher Josef Pieper put it, “the good man is good in so far as he is prudent.” And, Pieper adds, prudence is not to be confused with “cunning,” a kind of “false prudence” possessed by someone who uses immoral means to reach disreputable goals.
I can hear the objection now: “What has morality got to do with it?” The best answer is that although, movies to the contrary notwithstanding, we’re not approaching civil war, the question itself nevertheless reflects something wrong with our politics.
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Given Trump’s and Biden’s advanced ages by 2029, the real election issue this fall might well be between the two vice-presidential candidates: a yet-unknown versus the incomparable Kamala Harris.
One can only wonder if the author has a clue as to the root cause of this cultural divide?
President Trump was the most pro-life President we ever had. The Catholic vote failed him so he retrenched to have a chance politically in the next race. Joe Biden’s fangs are dripping with babies blood and our Church ‘leaders’ display only aa pusillanimous equanimity to protect those many many million$ going from our occupation government to the USCCB.
I doubt that debates will accomplish much. Perhaps persuade a few people on the fence? Most people have made up their minds.
I believe the choice of the word “divisiveness” is a mistake in characterizing the fundamental problem in “our politics.”
Divisiveness is a symptom, and it is of course manifested by many in expressing political views.
Cardinal Gregory is, unfortunately, a self-serving and dishonest man, and an unfaithful shepherd, a prime example of the decadent ruling establishment, and a reason why people, including young people, can see that what he represents is a counterfeit version of Christianity.
As to the real problem of being people divided, people are divided about what is “good” and what is “evil.” And politics offers all the chance to worship false gods.
And the establishment “elite” serve themselves, and the they do the bidding of the “false gods” of trans-global principalities and powers that keep the establishment monied and chauffeured. And that elite includes religious leaders like Cardinal Gregory, and his predecessor Cardinal Wuerl, and his predecessor un-Cardinal McCarrick, men who we rely on to choose more bishops, and more Cardinals, and more Pontiffs, who think and act like those three.
For Christian people, to be true to Christ, they must put Christ ahead their profane politics.
Unfortunately, Church leaders are all too often devoted to preaching about their political values, their “one-true-god” which they serve, as does The-Pontiff-Francis-of-Climate-Change-No-Borders-LGBTQ-Karl-Marx.
Which brings to mind an observation made by a man some 2000 years ago, while he was busy doing what the “shepherds” named above have opted not to do, because they themselves are integralists-of-the-left:
“If for this life only we have believed in Christ, we are of all men, most to be pitied.”
Choose Christ, and we might have the grace to leaven our country, and keep it a good country.
Or choose the empire, and we continue polluting the Body of Christ, and make it like another meaningless NGO, fit for nothing but to be stacked and burned.
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In the U.S, we have come to depend on too many federal employees, through the agencies created by Congress.
This has, and continues to, create a myriad of governance and financial problems. There is no way Congress and the President can effectively, and efficiently, manage this spider’s web.
COVID 19 money printing was $6 trillion added in just 2 years. A lot of that money ends up in the hands of the rich, which is creating obvious rifts between the haves and the have nots. (search recent Fed reports about the wealth of the top 1% since 2020)
I’ve stated before that this is a ‘hold your nose and cast your vote but VOTE’ election, as have been at least the last two elections.
And, given the two people between whom we have to choose – could it be that the reason for that is simple – that’s all we deserve as a people at this point in time.
The problem of people is not the symptom of divisiveness, but the pathology of a divided population.
The problem of being divided is the end work of men and women in the establishment who are outlaws: in the political realm, exemplified by Biden (like so many present and former Senators) who are “miraculously” millionaires, despite their whole careers being “public servants” making modest annual salaries. Perhaps (?) this is sufficient evidence for a canonical cause for our second “kad-o-lig” president who is “sincere-about-his-faith.”
Such cause could be promoted by fellow outlaws in the “kad-o-lig-Church-Establishment,” such as the sex abuse coverup Cardinals Wuerl, McElroy, Tobin-of-Newark, and Fernandez, etc, with the help of apostates-material-heretics like Hollerich-LGBTQ and apostate-material-heretic-emeritus-Kasper, etc etc, and self-serving liars and frauds like Cardinal Gregory? And there nominator, of course, the Pontiff Francis.
Serving God first offers the possibility of a Church filled with grace that can leaven the soul of a nation.
Serving the powers of this world offers nothing except the possibility of a fraud-Church-nothing-other-than-a-decadent-post-krisjun-NGO.
Or as the apostle marvelled some 2000 years ago:
“If for this life only we have believed in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.”