
I have been reading the new autobiography of Bruce Springsteen titled Born to Run. The first part of the book details the town Springsteen grew up in, a down and out, blue-collar town in New Jersey named Freehold. The description of his family and his town – hardscrabble with a departing manufacturing base, little to nothing replacing it, and a future in question – could easily be applied to my family and the town I grew up in (Hudson, New York). It could also apply to the town I with my wife and son now live in, Orange, Massachusetts. (Neighboring Athol meets the description as well.)
Also like Springsteen, beginning in my early adulthood up to even now, I have carried a simmering anger toward the unfairness and inequity that seems so rooted in modern American life. I experienced firsthand the financial dire straits and stresses of my family. I experienced my father losing his job and not knowing where the next one would come from and worrying about putting food on the table. I experienced all around me a crumbling town and disappearing jobs. I sometimes drive from Orange into Amherst and see the posh houses and the thriving businesses and feel angry at the incredible disparity.
I share these things to say I completely understand the
surface level appeal of a candidate like Donald Trump. I understand the anger
and the frustration that says it’s so thoroughly bad why not put someone in
there to tear it all down.
However, like Dirty Harry said, “a man’s got to know his
limitations.” It is important to look past the hype and deeper than surface
level, and acknowledge there is a line we cannot cross.
If we look deeply enough, we will quickly see Donald Trump
represents that line.
Donald Trump as Working-Class hero is a mirage. He grew up
privileged and remains so. He does not understand nor really care for working
class or poor people. Only in as much as the working class and poor are part of
his voting base, does he care. If you don’t support him and are working class
or poor, you quickly become a member of his loser list.
How do I know he doesn’t care for the poor? He has never
evidenced such care. Trump grew up in Queens, a working class borough of New
York City. He lived in a swanky neighborhood in that otherwise hardscrabble
borough. As soon as he was able, Trump in a flurry fled Queens for the
limelight and allure of Manhattan. He never looked back.
Did he ever invest in, build real estate in, or donate a
building, such as a library or school a la Andrew Carnegie, to any hard hit
neighborhood in Queens, or in Bronx, Brooklyn or Staten Island? Did he seek to
better the lives of hard hit areas in upstate New York where I grew up? Did he
ever, before running president, spend time in a small town like Orange or Athol
just to experience the people, their lives, their hardships, their hopes and
dreams a la Bruce Springsteen? Did he ever sit down with the lower paid
employees of his hotels or golf courses and hear about who they were or what
they were about, not to mention raising their wages?
Of course not. Even his giving to charitable organization
has always been minuscule.
The other thing that tells me he doesn’t really care for
poor people or working class people is his disregard and denigration of other
vulnerable people. From people with disabilities to refugees fleeing genocide,
Trump has exhibited not an ounce of real compassion or empathy.
In fact, it is just the opposite. Donald Trump has
consistently ridiculed, dismissed, and bullied the most vulnerable among us.
Those with physical disabilities. Those fleeing war and genocide and seeking
refuge in the Land of Liberty. Those experiencing hardship and hunger and
seeking a better future in the Land of Opportunity. Those unjustly convicted
and long incarcerated (see “The Central Park Five”). Those living amid the
poverty, danger, decay, yet the possibility and promise of American
inner-cities. Those still facing misogyny’s and sexism’s intimidation and
degradation.
Those assaulted by a culture of possessiveness, objectification,
and aggression.
He has in the past even ridiculed poor people. In a 1999
interview with the New York Times, Trump said this: “My entire life, I've
watched politicians bragging about how poor they are, how they came from
nothing, how poor their parents and grandparents were. And I said to myself, if
they can stay so poor for so many generations, maybe this isn't the kind of
person we want to be electing to higher office. How smart can they be? They're
morons.”
In the process of ridiculing, dismissing, and bullying the
vulnerable among us, Mr. Trump has been also teaching our children. Mr. Trump
has been teaching the most vulnerable
among us, our children, an ugliness, a mean-spiritedness, an incivility that is
toxic and harmful. Our children are taking all of this in. It is no wonder
schools have been reporting an increase in bullying and harmful language.
In one of the most revered passages of the Christian Bible,
in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, Jesus talks about the final judgment. For
Jesus, that judgment is based on how this key question is answered – what have you
done for the most vulnerable in our world?
It’s important to note that Donald Trump sees the world in a
binary way. He sees a world of either invulnerable winners and vulnerable losers
with no in-betweens. Trump is one of the greatest disciples of what is called
“Social Darwinism.” It is red tooth in claw battle for supremacy. And the prize
of riches, fame, power goes to those who are the most ruthless, the most
vicious, the most willing to take whatever is remotely available to win. As for
those who don’t take the prize, the sentiment is “better luck next time.”
The idea that the poor and the working class need help is
novel to Trump. But is this new found desire to help merely a means to the end
of winning an election? I truly believe it is. As I mentioned,
Trump cares for
the working class and the poor only in as much as they help him to win.
For me, Trump’s vision of and way of being in the world
could not be any different than that of Jesus. Jesus continually exalted the
most vulnerable, the least among us, the losers, the lost, the last-placers,
the lesser-thans.
In turn, he sought to unmask humility in the rich, the
powerful, and the arrogant. He called on them to let go of their
prized-possessions, their pride, their ego, and become poor in spirit and
servants at heart.
And Jesus called on all of us to let the children and the
most vulnerable teach and guide us. “The last shall be first.” “The children
shall lead.” “The humble will be lifted up.” “The poor” and “poor in spirit
will know the kingdom of God.” A Samaritan – a Muslim, a Mexican, an
African-American, a Hillary, what is Other to us – shows us what it means to be
a citizen.
Jesus not only spoke to the hopes and fears of the most
vulnerable among us, he lived among those hopes and fears and among the
down-and-outers replete with those hopes and fears. He dined and walked with
outcasts, punks, and has-beens. He became one of them. Not to lift them out of
some gutter but to show them that they, in their glorious diversity, were the
ones worthy of God’s kingdom and the ones to build that kingdom right where they were.
Simply put, Donald Trump represents everything Jesus stood
against. Trump represents the win-at-all cost and belittle-at-every-turn mentality
that Jesus rejected and was rejected for.
(If there were a 2016 that most closely mirrored the
principles and path of Jesus it was Bernie Sanders. Since he did not win, we are
left with the candidate Sanders himself supports.)
To close, I share a verse from Bruce Springsteen’s 2007 song
titled “Long Walk Home.”
"Your flag flyin' over the
courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone.
Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't"
Means certain things are set in stone.
Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't"
This election has hopefully forced us to do some
soul-searching as Americans, a soul-searching that will outlast the election.
Who are we? What values for us are etched in stone? What do those words etched
in stone say about what we will do and what we won’t?
If we are in any way
a nation that values the good teachings of Jesus; if we are in any way a nation
that sees innate value and worth in all people, beginning with the weak, the
loser, the last, the lost, the least; if we are in any way a nation that sees
kindness, neighborliness, and humility as virtues etched in stone, we will
choose on November 8th accordingly. We will make our forefathers and
foremothers – and our kindergartener teacher who taught us all we needed to
know - proud. Our children, the most vulnerable among us, are counting on us.
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