Waiting for a political messiah? Forget it.
Barack Obama, a messiah? In 2008, to many voters, he seemed just that. The economy was tanking, political divisions appeared intractable, and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars seemed endless. Americans were desperate for someone to “deliver them” from this mess, and some saw Obama as the anointed one. But when, as president, he didn’t solve everything by waving his magic staff — disillusionment set in. A 2010 Harris poll found that 14% of Americans — and 24% of Republicans — actually said Obama could be the anti-christ.
Now we’ve been treated to a year of debate among GOP presidential candidates who act as if they are running not for president but for the (now vacant) office of messiah. While Republicans like to mock people on the left who thought Obama was “the one,” their own candidates indulge regularly in blatant messiah-speak. The chosen ones?
How often do we hear that they have been “called” to run or that the nation needs to be “saved?” Before he dropped out Tuesday, Rick Santorum suggested he was “the Jesus candidate.” Newt Gingrich, who gets lots of flak for his messiah complex, is fond of declaring himself the candidate who can transform the nation, and in somewhat milder terms, so is Mitt Romney. There is, however, little evidence that any of these men, any more than Obama, can effect a transformation of the nation during a time of ideological polarization.
The candidates and voters are not completely to blame: The tone of our political campaigns is routinely apocalyptic, and the fresh blast of unfettered funds has only made things worse. Ads are loaded with subtle and not-sosubtle messages that only candidate (fill in the blank) can “save” us from the bleakest of futures. But something much more primal is at play: the belief that a man (the messiah business is closed to women) can leap into the political foray to “save” us is a powerful invisible presence. Origins of term
This desire to turn leaders into messiahs has its origins in the ancient Jewish world. The word messiah (in Hebrew, mashiach) is used sparingly in the Old Testament and typically described an anointed priest, prophet or king. In 586 BC, with the destruction of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem and exile of most of the Jewish princes to Babylon, messiah took on a new meaning: a king who would return to re-establish the Israeli kingdom and reunite the Jewish people. Christians subsequently applied the term to Jesus, redefining it to mean a divine savior who died for the sins of humanity and was expected to return to usher in an age of peace. Judaism itself was influenced by this new definition, and the belief in an all-saving messiah became a central tenet.
Fast forward to 2012 in the U.S. In a time of religious resurgence, millions of Christians pray for Jesus to return, and Orthodox Jews pray daily for him to arrive. Even the non-religious are not immune. Since the Enlightenment, they’ve periodically fallen hard for charismatic visionaries with big ideas that propose to remake the world. Some have been selfproclaimed messiahs who turn out to be madmen — Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong and Josef Stalin.
There will always be tough times breeding despair, and larger-than-life leaders who seem to offer easy solutions, but they present a temptation that must be resisted. Americans must stop hoping for one man to change everything. Instead, we must remind ourselves that government is an imperfect human endeavor and judge our leaders and wouldbe leaders on their records and actions, not on our desires to have them work miracles. We need no political messiahs.