What happened to the soul of America?
Joe Biden is pledging to restore the “soul of the nation” after the tumultuous four years of divisiveness that Donald Trump has sown. At the Democratic National Convention, Biden indicated that his campaign wasn’t going to be just about winning votes. He emphasised that it was going to be “about winning the heart and, yes, the soul of America”.
What happened to the soul of America?
The propensity of Donald Trump to rely on myriad lies, as many as 25 000 over four years, it is widely reported, and on wildly delusional conspiracy theories must make analysts wonder how as many as 74 196 153 voted for him. The fact that evangelical voters overwhelmingly supported Trump and voted for him makes it even more mystifying. The soul of America clearly has been in tatters.
If truth doesn’t matter any more and if the validity of science is grossly disregarded in the highest echelons of government, how can rule of law prevail? That is the sad history of the USA over the past four years.
Trump and his supporters are even now still clinging to the hope that Biden’s win can be overturned somehow and that he can remain in the White House.
More shockingly, The Washington Post revealed a few days ago that “President Trump’s political operation has raised more than $170 million since Election Day, using a blizzard of misleading appeals about the election.” For Donald Trump, it appears to pay big time to lose the election as he did. He is going to have plenty of money to wreak further political havoc.
Something is very rotten, not in the state of Denmark as Shakespeare wrote, but in the USA of 2020. The question of both public and individual morality has become a significant issue for Biden and Americans to contend with.
Even in South Africa, it pays for errant and corrupt politicians to foster lies or to be dragged to court to answer serious charges of corruption and the abuse of power. So much is wrong with the soul of the nation here also.
No wonder Biden has to be a politician’s politician and a pastor extraordinaire at the same time to deal with both the political and spiritual issues confronting his nation.
For us in South Africa the same conundrum applies.
Morality is at a low point everywhere. Public trust is broken. Many politicians routinely face the accusation of telling lies and are often caught stealing instead of husbanding resources. The undermining of the rule of law by people in power is the bane of people everywhere.
In the world of today, rare politicians of genuine deep faith who come to power have the onerous task of not only restoring the economic prosperity of their countries but having also to restore the soul of their nations as well.
Let us see how Joe Biden succeeds in the wastelands of present-day USA.
FAROUK CASSIM | Century View, Milnerton