Treatment for American Angst

We feel it in our homes, we are sensing it in our neighborhoods, churches, schools, and social circles. The private sector is dealing with its by-products every day: the forward energy of the economy is sapped and stalled, and the framework of assumptions for projecting growth is completely collapsed. It’s a combination of angst, dread, frustration, and anger. It’s leading to short-tempers, exaggerated reactions to normal day-to-day inconveniences, sullenness; a general, overall loss of joy and optimism about life in America.

Americans are now witnessing the all-out pursuit of a radical left political agenda that was not voted upon or in any way approved by the people. It was disguised, obscured, distorted and in some cases flatly lied about, but no amount of hindsight spinning by Pravda today is going to change the fact that Americans did not vote for it in November 2008 and do not want it now.

Americans’ increasingly foul mood is exacerbated every time we pick up a paper and read spins instead of reports; every time we turn on Pravda TV proclaiming that all is or will be well because the ‘popular’ Obama is on the job; every time we hear any member of the Political Class speak—whether Democrat or Republican. We know in our gut that (1) all is not well; (2) whatever personal popularity polls measure, they certainly don’t capture how we’re feeling; and (3) we have a Political Class that is incompetent, out of touch, and utterly incapable of honestly defining any problem, much less dealing with it. And we are far past getting any comfort out of the constantly peddled pabulum that the feelings of today are ‘all Bush’s fault’ and Obama is the answer to all of them if we’ll just give him time.

We’re conditioned to believe that as to the big picture, this is just the messiness of democracy; that we muddle through as the pendulum swings left and right; that somehow the fabric of American society will hold on through the current era, as it has, more or less, for over 200 years. We’re not sure.

It’s an inescapable fact that no matter how well the records of history are compiled and preserved, it’s not really possible to understand the condition of thought in any era other than the one we’re in. That’s because of all those ‘gut’ feelings we’ve noted about today’s era—they just can’t be ‘felt’ by anyone other than those conscious to feel them. Even though we hear and read countless comparisons to the Great Depression, however thoroughly researched and honestly documented, it’s still very hard to be sure how comparable the moods and feelings of the people really are. So we’ll skip the comparisons to other eras, and go right to today’s problem.

As we’ve intimated before, today’s problem is really a crisis of Christian faith—an attack on Christian confidence as the animating will of a free people. No matter how Pravda distorts, mischaracterizes and perverts Christian thinking, such thinking is at the core of the American founding; it is the spirit of American decency, generosity and goodness, and it is what drives American progress (and world progress, whether the world knows it or not).

The expectation that life can be improved; that hard work deserves its rewards; that marriage and family and raising children ‘in the way they should go’ are essential to civil society; that there is a difference between good and evil which can be discerned; that the idea of individual freedom and responsibility under God is the highest and best foundational principle of limited human government and the best shield from human tyranny—all of these are the infrequently spoken but universally ‘felt’ elements of American Christianity. And all of them are under vicious and relentless attack by an arrogant, godless intellectual ‘government is the only solution’ worldview that came wrapped in a falsely seductive package of off-white skin that appealed to the further Christian sentiment of rising above racial prejudices and stereotypes (remember it was St. Paul who long ago said ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, … there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus’).

So what can we do when all the experts say there is nothing we can do? Where do we go for an immediate solution when all the experts say the only solution is a future election cycle?

First and foremost, we keep the faith—the faith that, even if no larger than a grain of mustard seed, can move mountains. The faith of the founding fathers, when they pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to liberate humanity from human monarchy. The faith of Lincoln that said, in the midst of evil run amok, “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”; the faith of Reagan to venture into the very heart of evil and shout, “Tear down this wall!”.

We’ve noted the difficulty of comparing different eras. In the vernacular of the day, it seems ‘you had to be there’ to really understand a particular era. But in our era, we draw faith from these facts: 55 million Americans did not vote for Obama; Fox News is leading all networks and still growing in viewership, while almost all Pravda outlets are declining; the New York Times is going bankrupt; conservative talk radio is booming; Mark Levin’s book is a No. 1 bestseller; and we’re one of thousands and maybe millions of websites voicing these and similar sentiments. We don’t know the nature and vigor of opposition to FDR’s socialist agenda during his time, but we think today’s opposition to the Obama agenda is more vigorous and connected than ever. It’s not going to dissipate, even if the government tries to shut down talk radio and other dissent; if anything, it grows stronger every day.

The radical left agenda is not only disdainful of the American heritage of freedom; it seeks to destroy it. And this will be its ultimate undoing. Because the American heritage of freedom is evidence of ‘divine Providence’ in human affairs. And whether a majority believes it or doesn’t believe it, divine Providence hasn’t gone away. Americans rightly can and should stick to their faith, and affirm their national DNA that says freedom is gift from God, and clever men will not be allowed to take it away, and cannot take it away.

We don’t know what the signature phrase of the signature speech will be that historians point to as the one that woke up and turned America around (maybe Dick Cheney will voice it), but we believe it will come, and soon. Americans are restless and agitated. This government’s agenda is illegitimate; it can’t continue, and it won’t. Truth and freedom have their own power, and cannot be denied or contained.

Paul Gable

Posted May 17, 2009