Resisting American Renewal

A flurry of stories in the news this week highlight the worldview clash taking place in the United States.

President Trump’s Saturday tweets–that his team was wiretapped by the Obama Administration in the run-up to the November election–was the first jaw dropper. Then the new Wikileaks missive exposed more secrets of the CIA. Next, repeal and replace Obamacare ramped up.

Before that we witnessed women’s marches, the Democrats slow-walking appointments on Capitol Hill, and other intelligence turmoil and leaks while a new American Administration tried to get on its feet.

What’s going on in the world’s oldest democracy? It’s plain and simple.

A multi-front war has been launched to resist an American renewal.

The news cascaded this week on so many fronts that it’s almost impossible to detail. Besides, most of them were very confusing, filled with speculation, and laden with weeds.

It might be best to take us up to the 36,000 mile level and look down on what is happening in the 21st century’s lone superpower.

Here’s my view.

First of all, let’s remind ourselves that the USA is a divided nation. An Associated Press/NORC Center poll recently revealed that truth in living Technicolor. Here is their 2017 finding (written by Matt Sedensky).

“Add one more to the list of things dividing left and right in this country: We can’t even agree what it means to be an American. A new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds Republicans are far more likely to cite a culture grounded in Christian beliefs and the traditions of early European immigrants as essential to U.S. identity.”

“Democrats are more apt to point to the country’s history of mixing of people from around the globe and a tradition of offering refuge to the persecuted. While there’s disagreement on what makes up the American identity, 7 in 10 people – regardless of party – say the country is losing that identity.”

So America has an identity problem. Yes, we know that.

The article continues:

“‘It’s such stark divisions,’ said Lynele Jones, a 65-year-old accountant in Boulder, Colorado. Like many Democrats, Jones pointed to diversity and openness to refugees and other immigrants as central components of being American. ‘There’s so much turmoil in the American political situation right now. People’s ideas of what is America’s place in the world are so different from one end of the spectrum to the other,’ Jones said. “

“There are some points of resounding agreement among Democrats, Republicans and independents about what makes up the country’s identity. Among them: a fair judicial system and rule of law, the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution, and the ability to get good jobs and achieve the American dream.”

That’s encouraging, but: 

“Reggie Lawrence, a 44-year-old Republican in Midland, Texas, who runs a business servicing oil fields, said the country and the Constitution were shaped by Christian values. As those slip away, he said, so does the structure of families and, ultimately, the country’s identity. ‘If you lose your identity,’ Lawrence said, ‘What are we? We’re not a country anymore.'”

Fair point. Finally,

“The poll found Democrats were nearly three times as likely as Republicans to say that the U.S. should be a country made up of many cultures and values that change as new people arrive, with far more Republicans saying there should be an essential American culture that immigrants adopt.”

“Two questions, also posed during the presidential campaign, offered insight into how Trump’s election may have changed partisans’ views. The poll found about 52 percent of Republicans now regard the U.S. as the single greatest country in the world, up significantly from 35 percent when the question was asked last June.” (The AP-NORC poll of 1,004 adults was conducted Feb. 16-20, 2017).

Let me explain this poll in an historical sense and then define the current attempt to resist any form of American renewal.

American was uniquely founded in the 17th-18th centuries as a Christian based republic–the first country in history to be so birthed. Our charter, the Declaration of Independence, clearly reflected the centrality of God and biblical principles (“life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”). Our Constitution–still the world’s oldest–put those ideas into the construct of law. 

• Faith in God – our national motto, inscribed on our coins is “In God We Trust.”

• Family-based morality – strong and moral families led by godly wives and mothers (conclusion of Alexis de Toqueville in his seminal work Democracy in America).

• Freedom in business enterprise and from government tyranny.

Here is the American cultural equation for success: Faith, family, freedom.

When millions of immigrants streamed to our shores for hundreds of years they generally adopted those maxims. They became Americans. God providentially blessed that commitment and catapulted the United States into global leadership and influence.  

We call this American exceptionalism. It’s exceptional because it never happened before. 

Never.

For those first two hundred years, both political parties shared a common belief in what made America great. Then beginning in the 1960s, many forces began separating the U. S. from its belief in God (Bible and prayer removed from the schools), family life deteriorated (even re-defining marriage), and a growing government bureaucracy encroached on many American freedoms (EPA regulations, Obamacare etc.) 

The Democratic Party generally encouraged this move away from biblical foundations to secular ideas. The mainstream liberal media joined the chorus. The election of Barack Obama and his eight years in office allowed secular constructs to reach a zenith–discouraging belief in God, creating alternative families, and taking away economic liberties. President Obama said he wanted to “transform” America. 

He did. 

• From faith in God to many gods and a powerful Government.
• From strong families to special interest victim groups.
• From freedom to the soft tyranny of the bureaucratic state.

Then along came Donald Trump–a most unlikely champion of original American values. He shared or spoke about many of them. He promised their restoration. He brought many godly men and women around him and promised a true America renewal (Make America Great Again).

Exhibit A: There are more people of faith (evangelicals) in the Trump Cabinet than any other in history. Donald Trump was elected to begin (at least on a governmental level), an American renewal.

So what is happening in the United States right now?  As President Trump and his Administration move quickly to re-boot “America,” a vast secular resistance screams and thrashes to stop the U-turn. Many fronts are united in that cause:

1. The Republican Party establishment remains solidly entrenched in the DC bubble and are NOT committed to renewing America’s traditional values and culture.

2.  The Democratic Party paralyzes Congress, slow-walks all of Trump’s nominees, and cries “Fire!”about Russian connections and wire-tapping when they are the ones who have strengthened the hands of our adversaries in past years.

3. The former Obama Administration, still embedded as political appointees in the bureaucracy, are leaking documents and creating havoc–like governmental IEDs planted in various agencies. Barack Obama personally stays in the capital city to launch a national community organizing group to preserve his legacy. He is the first former president to actively speak and work against his successor.

4. Mainstream liberal media (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, Washington Post etc.) report 85% negative articles on the Trump presidency in his first 30 days to try and bring him down. Fake news is now the new norm.

5. Democratic billionaires such as George Soros continue to push the open borders agenda and hire naive know-nothings to march and riot in the streets and shout down Republican town halls.

6. Secular university profs and students pummel free speech by protesting and assaulting conservative speakers (Charles Murray in Vermont) and burning buildings (Cal-Berkeley).

7. Witches and Wiccans worldwide pronounce curses on Donald Trump and his people.

8. The real power broker group–the invisible demonic world–laughs and ghoulishly orchestrates the dividing and destroying of America. They know that if America fails, then their casualities will grow.

That’s the Big Picture as I see it.

If you’re a person who loves God, believes in family, and cherishes freedom, you are desperately needed to enlist in this culture war and fight to win.

Cry out in prayer. Grow in knowledge and character. Muster your talents. Do what God shows you to do.

We must righteously defeat the resistance against an American Renewal.