Victor Chininin Buele

One of the words that arose the deepest responses from inside of my soul during this election cycle is the word disqualified. And two specific questions about it: (1) Where does the concept of being disqualified come from? (2) Why does it not seem to matter one bit to people (in general)?

Vice President Harris might have thought she was delivering a major blow to former President Trump’s campaign by calling him disqualified. The rhetoric used by him as he spoke of former Rep. Liz Cheney seemed to be the last straw.

But it didn’t seem to change much in people’s decision making process.

Once upon a time, my piano professor and friend of more than two decades challenged me about making comments like the one I’m bringing before you now on account of the Dunning–Kruger effect, a cognitive bias that, put simply, means people who have no expertise in something, or who have a very limited competence in a particular area, think of themselves as experts, going well beyond their actual abilities and knowledge. On this particular subject, I ask you to trust me, for I know a thing or two about the effect the word disqualified has in people. To tell you what these experiences are in detail would distract from the point.

I ask you the first question because the American experiment has reached the point where pluralism has gone from being a foundational ideal of American democracy and public discourse to being an impossibility. We have been pretending for quite a number of years that there is no absolute truth. Never mind that to say that is in itself a statement of absolute truth. But then, President Trump comes into our little screens in our pockets, and all of a sudden, time and time again his lies become something that can’t be avoided. There is, after all, such a thing as absolute truth. And there is something inside of us, even in the deepest levels of our perversion, if we haven’t repented of our sins and turned to Jesus in holiness, that cries out for justice and vindication. Trump challenges this false post-modern premise of supposed neutrality as it comes to the truth. The idea that I have “my truth” and you have yours seems to work great when we are talking about “private things,” but it clearly fails at moments like the one before the United States today.

This moral compass, or these faint remains of a conscience point us to the fact that God truly does exist and that He is truth and love and justice and mercy. Our souls are in great disarray these days because we want truth so long as it doesn’t expose the lies we like to live out, we want love so long as it doesn’t require us to look at the cross of Jesus Christ and find there that true love requires death to ourselves and to our most precious passions, we want justice so long as the other gets what he deserves, we want mercy so long as it is in a virtual signaling sort of presentation and puts me in the best possible light.

Where would Vice President Harris get the idea that President Trump is disqualified? From somewhere in the depths of her heart where she knows that God is life and the author of life and that we must not kill, where she knows what Jesus taught: that even to insult my neighbor is as if I had already murdered him.

When the human soul truly beholds the spectacle that Trumps brings forth, it cries out for mercy, for God to make this right, to somehow sort out this contradiction.

And now we come to the second question, why does it seem to not matter one bit. Well, first of all, technically, as any sinful narcissist has demonstrated in the history of the world, it is possible to show a list of qualifications and say that the person in question is eminently qualified, largely ignoring the concerns that resulted in the accusation of disqualification. Narcissists are excellent at coming out of accusations clean as a whistle in their own eyes and making the person raising the concern to think that she is crazy or deceived or confused or just wrong. Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the United States Constitution requires that Mr. Trump be a natural-born citizen, at least thirty-five years-old, and a resident of the United States for at least fourteen years. Those are the technical qualifications. He meets them all. He is not disqualified.

When the human mind is trying to sort out that conflict between what our eyes are seeing/our ears are hearing and what we want to do, cognitive dissonances “help,” and that’s why this word carries no impact. To say someone is disqualified puts into question the moral and intellectual decision-making process of the person making the choice to affirm the qualification, in this case, to vote for President Trump. How can I be the “good person” that I know I am and still vote for this man that I know to be [insert here the revelation of Trump’s heart in display now, as it always changes]? So, I must end up affirming the qualification because there is no way that I can remain in my own eyes a thinking, moral being and still do that. Sure, I must affirm that a pastor must be above reproach and faithful to his wife while I ignore the sexual immorality that has characterized Mr. Trump’s life. We deny the evidence in front of us, and we tell ourselves that we are doing the right thing, the honorable thing, the thing that will bring the best success to the nation, the thing that will expand the Kingdom of God.

I only speak of Trump for brevity and to not obscure the point, not out of a sense of endorsement of the Vice President, nor to fake fairness.

My point here is quite simple: today’s election will reflect many things about your heart. What do you believe in? What do you hope for? What makes you angry? What do you worship? Pluralism is breaking down because now that everyone is more open about the fact that we are our own gods, these gods are in conflict in a lot more visible and profound ways than ever before when we all pretended to have the same basic morality. I appreciate the memes and publications that clearly say that we are past “agreeing to disagreeing” but that we are facing dueling moralities.

The challenge for the United States, whoever wins, is to answer honestly and truthfully who we are. I think that a lot of people need to admit the truth that America has never been a Christian nation, and others need to admit that they really are becoming a new inquisition of thought and practice. The nation cannot continue like this. Trump didn’t create the division. It was already there. His gross immorality was just the event that forced us to have to find a way to deal with it. And we are failing. We are justifying ourselves and carrying on the idea that everything is going to be alright. It won’t be. Not until we truly acknowledge what it is that we worship and act like it.

Americans are very committed evangelists. Things are going to get uglier, I am afraid, since these competing gospels are coming at each other and not bending the knee to the One who rules over all.

For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
    and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring,
    and my blessing on your descendants.
They shall spring up among the grass
    like willows by flowing streams. (Isaiah 44:3-4 ESV)