Just over a week ago, conservative columnist David Brooks wrote that "this is a Joe McCarthy moment. People will be judged by where they stood at this time. Those who walked with [Donald] Trump will be tainted forever after for the degradation of standards and the general election slaughter."
Sen. Joe McCarthy was a demagogue in the early 1950s. He ruined many innocent people with his bullying and lying, stoking irrational fears that our government and military were "infested" with Communists and spies. He was eventually censured by the Senate for his lies.
Webster's defines a demagogue as "a person, especially an orator or political leader, who gains power by arousing people's emotions and prejudices." Demagogues incite our passions. They demand action. Now! Violent action, often. They tell lies to stir up hysteria, even hatred. They use bullying, charisma and cajoling to concentrate power around themselves. They undermine government "by the people" by turning "the people" against one another. Demagogues have always been the greatest vulnerability for democracies and republics.
There is a folk definition for the word "propaganda": "If you repeat a lie long enough, people will believe it." An earlier demagogue wrote that "in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of the nation are more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or emotionally."
Mr. Trump has a collection of big lies. "I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall." This is just one of 25 lies so outrageous that they have earned Donald Trump a "Pants on Fire" ranking on Politifact.com. Politifact is a Pulitzer Prize-winning nonpartisan fact-checking independent journalism service from the Tampa Bay Times. In 2013 they gave their "Lie of the Year" to President Barack Obama for his promise, "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it."
Politifact has checked and evaluated 136 of Donald Trump's public statements, judging their trustworthiness on a six-point scale. The research results: True -- 2 percent. Mostly true -- 7 percent. Half true -- 15 percent. Mostly false -- 15 percent. false -- 43 percent. Pants on fire -- 18 percent. It is a lying pattern. Yet when challenged by truth, Mr. Trump rarely recants.
Demagogues often incite violent passions. Heretofore, if a political candidate condoned and encouraged physical violence toward a sign-carrying protester at a rally, that candidate would be shamed out of politics. Demagogues have no shame.
Mr. Trump's racist comments toward Mexicans and Muslims are another form of verbal violence against so many of our American neighbors. Mr. Trump's racist and sexist comments are bringing out the worst in us.
For those of us who are Christians, we look to Jesus to inspire the best in us. When we look at Jesus, we see someone motivated by compassion. His ethic was an ethic of love -- love your neighbor as yourself. He respected the foreign and alien, offering the same gifts of feeding and healing to all. He refused to encourage violence. He went so far as to command us to love our enemies. He spoke the truth.
Jesus' most political statement is his Parable of the Judgment of the Nations in Matthew 25. He taught that nations will be judged on how they succeed or fail to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, visit the prisoner.
In this year's immature and destructive political season, it is critical for people of good will to insist on a return to our better nature. We are the strongest and wealthiest nation in the world. We have the capacity to build a society in which every person can live into their full potential. We can create a nation where every child has shelter, security, food, clothing, health care and excellent educational opportunities.
We are in this together. We are one nation under God, and we can act like one. The call of the moment is to resist the false prophet's appeals to our lower nature. The call of our lifetime is to live into our highest potential, grounded in love and compassion.
"May God give you grace not to sell yourselves short, grace to risk something big for something good, grace to remember that the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love." -- William Sloan Coffin
Commentary on 05/10/2016