A SYMBOL OF ABSURDITY
The closest cliché to the current election cycle is clearly a circus. With red elephants and blue donkeys on parade, the crowd “ooo’s” and “ahh’s” at the beyond-belief sight. Even if the quality of the performance is subpar, the energy in the room transcends lucid appraisal resulting in overpriced flashlights, overhyped victuals, and overembellished proclamations from a ringmaster who conspicuously shares the last name of almost every other performer.
Circuses, like elections, often disorient the audience with hypnotic mirages—feigning camaraderie and peddling promises, erecting illusions and soliciting allegiance, bartering fables for ballots and fabricating utopian visions of a new world (or at least the resurrection of an old one), of course, only attainable under their leadership.
Indeed, the circus cliché aligns with American elections with startling precision.
And yet, the Trump/Clinton iteration renders Ringling Bros. and Tarzan Zerbini as mere add-ons at a Junior High talent show. Deceit surpasses the big top; vitriol gallops into the stands; controversy threatens to strike the tent; and misinformation eclipses cotton candy as the panem et circenses.
Both parties and both candidates confound reason and leave the spectators not with the question of “Who do I vote for?” but “Who is to blame?”
DISPLACING BLAME
It’s easy to blame the “other side” of the political spectrum (donkey or elephant or otherwise) but, in reality, this is a collective effort—an accumulation of the free market’s incarceration of politics, the conversion of dialogue into theaters of war, the transfiguration of race relations into seizures of power, the transubstantiation of the common people into imperial ground zero, and the mass media’s masquerade of truth and reason in the garbs of fear and urgency. The casualties of this cluster include communication, self-control, and the poor—climaxing with the eradication of unity and, ultimately, sanity.
Yet, who is to blame?
The same question arose around ten years ago in critique of the “reality TV” phenomenon. Conflating entertainment, fantasy, and our distorted definition of “reality,” evening television was inundated with American Idol, Big Brother, the Biggest Loser, Survivor, the Bachelor, the Voice, and the Apprentice, each exposing and exploiting a different vice, whether it be arrogance, anger, gluttony, lethargy, lust, envy, or greed.
But…Who is to blame for the “reality TV” spectacle?
Hidden in the cacophony of public criticism (i.e., “I don’t watch those shows—they’re stupid…”—a common utterance in direct disproportion to the high ratings), reality TV shows disclose a societal definition of “who we are” typically concealed under layers of distortion that mask our true identities.
“Reality TV” was a reflection of those watching; it was a revelation of “us.” Our identity. Our vices. Simply, us.
FROM FANTASY TO FRIGHTENING
And now, this election cycle has blurred the boundaries between “reality TV” and our political system, between sitcoms and statecraft, between fantasy and frightening.
So, who is to blame?
As clashes of the candidates imitate the confrontations of protesters and police, images fill our screens with chaos and seppuku. Suicide, depression, and self-immolation have replaced life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, leaving a mystifying wake of inquiry that wonders: “Do any truths remain self-evident? Are any unalienable rights still certain? Who are we and what have we become?”
Resting just below the surface of this inquisition is another piercing query: Who is to blame?
However difficult it may be to admit, whether observing the arena of the RNC or the DNC (amalgamations of narcissism, criminal cover ups, delusive discourse, snares of sovereignty, and pithy slogans filled with empty promises), whether watching the choice candidate or the calamitous competition, in reality, we are merely looking into a mirror of our own souls…and we don’t like what we see.
A STARTLING REVELATION
In Revelation 17, St. John is confronted with a startling image of his own—a political cartoon of sorts in which the Roman Empire is embodied in a harlot astride a scarlet beast. Intoxicated on innocent blood and emblazoned with intolerable blasphemes (Rev 17:3-6), a startling twist occurs in Revelation 17:16 when the prostitute (Rome) is devoured by the very ones who gave her power—evil purging evil, Satan expelling Satan, an imperial hara-kiri.
This image is not followed by a call to arms or a battle cry for the first-century Christians to attack a wayward government and make Rome great again. This image is not followed by a revolution that constitutes a new imperial iteration or a clarion call for the Christians to gather and bear arms.
Instead, a voice from heaven simply cries out: “Come out of her my people” (Rev 18:4).
This is not an imperative to desert asceticism, but a demand for allegiance signified through separation from the prostitute’s egregious sins, including: violence (Rev 17:6; 18:24), the exultation of merchants (18:3, 9, 11-15, 17, 23), and the silencing of prophets—whether through neglect or obliteration (17:6; 18:24; 19:2). It is a call to ethical purity, to holy transformation, to cruciform living.
Why? Because the only hope for a world subsumed in a circus of assault and insanity, is Christians acting like Christ (1 John 2:6). Christians replacing greed with sacrifice, violence with forgiveness, fear with peace, despair with hope, lies with love, lust with fidelity, deceit with the wisdom of God revealed in the cross of Christ.
“Come out of her my people.”
REFLECTIONS FROM THE ELECTION
When we look into the collective soul of our spiraling society, Christians should not give in to the temptation to blame—passing the responsibility of reform on to the other party or person.
No.
The Christian must embrace this election as an opportunity for transformation—refusing to accept the reflection in the mirror and surrendering to the incarnation’s revelation of true humanity, rejected in Eden and restored in Gethsemane.
Indeed, when all is said and done, our greatest frustration in this election season may not be the narcissistic-bigoted-faux-businessman or the deceitful-power grabbing temptress, but the startling realization that what repulses us the most is the clarity of the reflection in the mirror.
So: “Come out of her my people.”