A Few Observations about the ‘04 Election
At the risk of adding more words to an already verbose dialogue, I would like to make a few observations about the 2004 election, and what it means for the body of Christ. In the interest of honesty and transparency, I should tell you that I voted for President Bush, and consider myself a conservative. I should also tell you that I spent at least the first 25 years of my life as a Democrat. I recognize that there are sincere Christians who voted differently for reasons that they feel are equally important.
I do, for the record, consider issues like economic empowerment and affordable healthcare to be crucial moral issues. I’m also not blind to the very real struggles we are facing in Iraq. So my vote certainly wasn’t a stamp of a belief in the perfection of the candidate. With that in mind, I’d like to add my two cents, for what they’re worth, to an already noisy conversation.
Demographic Shifts
Despite the highly publicized “Rock the Vote” initiative and other efforts that paraded celebrities around with “Vote or Die” T-shirts, the proportion of 18-29 year olds voting remained unchanged. True, the hard numbers and percentages of eligible voters in this age group were slightly up, and they did favor Kerry (according to the now infamous exit polls) 54%-45%. Still, it was hardly the untapped wealth of votes Michael Moore (director of “Fahrenheit 9/11”) promised, and could just as easily be explained by a more engaged electorate over-all. It’s hard to believe there wasn’t a ground-swell of activism after Eminem told Rolling Stone that Bush wasn’t his homie, but here we are.
If most celebrities weren’t, by definition, narcissistically oblivious, they might conclude they weren’t all that influential. Or they might conclude that they influence greater numbers away from their cause than toward it. It seems to me that those young adults who are influenced by such celebrities might embrace their more dominant qualities of self-obsessed hedonism over the out-of-place calls to civic engagement that surface every four years. On a lighter note, maybe young adults just look to entertainers for entertainment, and most of the people who would vote just because of Justin Timberlake or Leonardo DiCaprio are probably a little young to do so legally.
Young adults who will make a real difference in the future of our nation will be those who are guided by convictions not trends; others will simply stay home. The African Americans and Hispanics of all ages who did turn out, however, showed a @#!$ (albeit not overwhelming) toward the Republicans over 2000, African Americans by 2% overall, and Hispanics by about 9%. Most believe this was largely due to moral issues such as abortion and the definition of marriage, which may begin to present problems for those who want to portray “Christian Conservatives” as white bigots. Never has the continual work of reconciliation within the Church in America been so important! When we present a united front of “all nations, tribes and tongues” (Rev. 7:9), particularly on campus, it is much more difficult for our opponents to dismiss our viewpoints with stereotypes.
Moral Issues
I am a fan of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, just one of my secret addictions that elicits concern about my salvation from many of my fellow believers. Never mind that it mocks my point of view 75% of the time: it is funny (if not crass sometimes), and its host and I both went to William and Mary. Stewart, who seems to be an unapologetic left-leaner, gave a touching and heartfelt Monday night plea to his audience to vote, no matter how inconvenient. While other lefty pundits are cruel and derogatory, I found Stewart’s visible shock at the outcome on Wednesday to be positively adorable. He bantered with his guest that none of the “important” issues trumped “dudes kissing.”
Stewart’s reaction was a perfect illustration of the honest, intelligent, “enlightened” person who cannot conceive of an argument against the redefinition of marriage being based in anything other than bigotry and ignorant fear. Whether you believe protecting the lives of unborn babies and the definition of marriage are central to our cultural health or mere red herrings in the more important discussion of who will feed the poor, the biblical position on these issues is routinely mocked and rarely given serious consideration inside or outside the classroom.
I can’t speak for all of the evangelicals who turned out in Ohio, but I can tell you that I feel these ideas are deeply important. I don’t believe my views are informed by hatred or fear. Christians must be able to better articulate the reasons for our stances on these issues. The information to do this exists, but we must be familiar enough with it to express our views without resorting to vague or religious language. (Interested parties should check out the excellent article that appeared in The Weekly Standard this past February.
Media Bias
In July, Evan Thomas of Newsweek confirmed the conventional wisdom that the vast majority of national journalists preferred Kerry and went so far as to promise that the mainstream media would deliver at least a fifteen point advantage to him on election day. Those of us who favored Bush certainly felt the bias in their coverage of the campaigns, whatever Eric Alterman over at The Nation believes. I was fairly oblivious to political news while I was in college, so if that’s where you are, I sympathize. Since then, however, I’ve graduated to the level of a casual news-junkie. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was personally gratified to watch the mainstream media folks try to contain their grief Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
But beyond a little gloating, it still boils down to the issue of influence. Networks and big-city newspapers don’t have the stranglehold on the public discourse they did 20 years ago. We are no longer dependent on CBS or The New York Times to figure out what’s going on in the world. Hugh Hewitt observed that this election may be the final dethroning of the Old Media guard that was crowned after the Watergate scandal, and long outlived its relevance. In @#!$, network anchors still see themselves as valiantly protecting America from corrupt leaders. In reality, they were so busy protecting us, they forgot to keep their own corruption and prejudices in check.
Media bias is part of a larger problem with the one-sided discussion of social issues which also pervades the classroom and Hollywood. Christians, particularly those involved with higher education, must bring logic and truth back to a conversation dominated by sound-bites and fallacy. We must never insulate ourselves from those whose opinions differ from ours, but engage them, learn what motivates and informs them, and respectfully present a well thought through alternative.
Conclusion
If you read any left-leaning bloggers or columnists following the election, many of them discussed the need to clarify their ideas, message and vision. Indeed, I believe much of the rising generation of future leaders is far from making up its mind about its world-view. True, most are already indoctrinated with the moral relativism that dominates our public classrooms, daytime talk shows, and popular movies. Yet on a personal level, most of them are still waiting for someone of integrity to follow, someone whose words and life rise above the hypocritical opportunism they see around them everyday. Are we ready to fill that void? Don’t we have something better to offer than “vote or die?”
Take the responsibility to pray through the needs of those around you, the needs of your school, family and community. Study what the Word of God says about the issues you are most passionate about. Become informed about current events and policy decisions in general, but especially those that impact your sphere of interest and influence. Then, as the Bible urges us in 1 Peter 3:15, you’ll be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in you, no matter who asks.
Filed in: Editiorals ·
0 Comments
Leave a comment
Use the form below to add comments, suggestions, and the inevitable off-topic banter (please keep to a minimum). Feel free to use HTML code (optional), and be aware that we reserve the right to edit any raw language or banter that's too far off topic.