Rioters wearing Trump paraphernalia breached the Capitol Wednesday as lawmakers met to ratify President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College win PHOTO: MANUEL BALCE CENETA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
President Donald J. Trump, Washington D.C., January 6, 2021
As was the case with most kids who grew up in the late ‘70’s and early 80’s, I was a huge Star Wars fan. The original film, released in 1977, was such a huge hit that everyone knew it would be followed by a sequel.
The eagerly anticipated follow up, The Empire Strikes Back, debuted in 1980. Unlike so many movie sequels, this one was worthy of the original. In fact, many critics consider The Empire Strikes Back to be the best of the original Star Wars trilogy.
A lot of the things that forty years later we think of a quintessentially Star Wars were not in the first film. The Imperial Walkers, the Darth Vader theme music, Boba Fett, and Yoda all mode their debut in The Empire Strikes Back, not in the first 1977 movie.
Now you may be wondering why I’m talking about The Empire Strikes Back, a movie that came out over forty years ago, in the context of a piece about last week’s Capitol Hill riot.
My reason is this, just as The Empire Strikes Back was a movie, as the title tells us, of the Empire going on the offensive to once and for all crush the resistance of the Rebel Alliance that had blown up the Death Star, the Empire’s super weapon, so too the events of the past year, including the events of January 6, 2021, seem to be aimed at brining to a quick end the populist uprising that began in Great Britain and in America back in 2016.
After years of discussion, in June of 2016 Great Britain held a vote on Brexit, which was the popular name given to the movement to take the UK out of the European Union. The vote turned out, to the shock and horror of globalists everywhere, in favor of Brexit.
Across the pond, we here in America were faced with a similar choice in that year’s presidential election. We could support Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate, who, we were told by all the experts, was and unstoppable electoral juggernaut, more than capable of crushing all resistance in her path, or we could support a very bad orange man named Donald John Trump.
Hillary supporters were the blessed, the righteous, the very elect of the Lord. The Donald’s backers? Well, we all know they were just a bunch of racist, sexist, homophobic basket of toothless, uneducated, irredeemably deplorable rednecks, who, just like their leader Donald Trump, were very bad people who deserved very bad things to happen to them.
But, as was the case with Brexit, much to the shock and horror of the Masters of the Universe crowd, Queen Hillary lost and the Donald and his merry band of deplorables won.
It was at this point that the Empire – by “Empire” I mean the whole rotten basket of Deep Staters, establishment types, Clintonistas, RINO’s, Obamites, Bushies, crony capitalist billionaires, banksters, Vaticanites, Wall Streeters, globalists, etc. – began to plot how they were going to strike back, oust Donald Trump, and permanently return themselves to power.
In a nutshell, I believe this explains the last four years of nonstop shrieking from, and relentless attacks by, the establishment on Donald Trump, his supporters and about every single thing they have said and done.
Donald Trump holds up copy of Washington Post with headline announcing his acquittal by the Senate, Feb. 6, 2020.
Facing an impeachment hearing and senate trial for his part in the cover up related to the Watergate burglary, then President Richard Nixon chose to resign from office in August 1974. Upon being sworn into office, President Gerald R. Ford gave a brief 850-word address in which he uttered the now famous line, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”
Being all of eight years old at the time, I didn’t have a super sophisticated understanding of all that was going on, but I did get the gist of it. President Nixon had done something wrong and tried to hide it. Now, he had to resign.
But more than the particulars related to the case, what I recall from that period was the overwhelming sense of boredom I had with hearing about Watergate and anything Watergate related. It really did seem like along national nightmare that went on year after year after year. No doubt, some of that was due to my age. When you’re eight years old, six months seems like a lifetime, because, in a way, it is.
In truth, the whole Watergate saga took about two years and two months to play out. On June 17, 1972, the Watergate burglars were arrested. On August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (C), flanked by House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, and House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, announces articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Dec 10, 2019.
“Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election – that is a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.”
Mark Galli in Christianity Today, 12/19/20
As is probably true with most writers, there are times when I find picking a post topic can be difficult. This week, not so much. Very obviously, the biggest story over the past few days has been the House of Representatives vote to impeach Donald Trump. Whatever one’s opinion on the impeachment of the president, it’s a hard story to ignore.
The fact that it’s only the third time in American history that a president has been impeached is enough by itself to warrant commentary.
Seemingly designed to further rub salt in the wound of Trump’s Evangelical supporters, a recent poll by Politico/Morning Consult indicated that 43% of Evangelicals support Donald Trump’s removal from office.
So is it true, as the Christianity Today editorial and the Politico poll would have us believe, that a substantial percentage of Trump’s Evangelical base wants Trump removed from office?
Better late than never, or so goes the old saying. I’d hoped to get this 2018 wrap up posted last week but, as usual, my ambition was greater than my reach. But late or not, it still seems good to me to take a little time and reflect on the year in blogging that was as well as to look ahead to 2019.
As always, I’d like to give a big thank you to my readers and commenters. It has been my prayer that you’ve found the work on this blog edifying in your Christian walk. We live in an age where it seems that almost everything is fake. But the words of Jesus Christ and the words of all Scripture are as real and true today as when they first were written down so long ago. It has been my endeavor to apply those words to the events of our own time, not only to help readers see the world through the lens of Scripture, but also to encourage.
Sometimes it can seem as if our problems are such that no one in any previous age ever saw their like. And yet as the Apostle Paul wrote, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man.” Yes, it’s true that we face a world of problems, but God has not left us in darkness without hope in the world.
If there is one idea that I hope to impart to readers of this blog, it’s this: No matter how great the struggles we face in our personal lives, no matter how great the crises we face as a nation, the Word of God makes us complete and thoroughly equipped to address them. As Gordon Clark and John Robbins rightly taught, the 66 books of the Bible have a systematic monopoly on truth. Further, it is the ignorance, perhaps even knowing rejection, of this simple idea that had led the formerly Christian West to the brink of disaster.
Lux Lucet 