Our Broken Culture Needs the Hope Found in the Gospel, Not Politics by Jim Denison via Christian Headlines
Former President Donald Trump launched his third bid for the White House last night. He spoke to an invited crowd from the ballroom of his Mar-a-Lago private club in Florida, where he declared, “America’s comeback starts right now.”
As you know, Republicans are divided over whether Mr. Trump should be their nominee again in 2024. Some are celebrating his announcement and believe that he is the only candidate who can “make America great again.” Some believe he did much good but that it is now time for the party to move on to new leaders such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Some believe he has damaged their party and blame him for their midterm losses. And some Republicans (the “Never Trump” group) consider him unfit for office.
Of course, the Democrats have their own internal issues. Some want President Biden to run again, believing he is their best chance to defeat Mr. Trump. Some want anyone but Mr. Biden to run again, believing that he is too old and that the party needs new leadership. Some in the second group believe Vice President Kamala Harris should be their candidate; others believe it should be anyone but her.
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All this to say, it is a misnomer to claim that America has a simple two-party system.
Third-party candidates sometimes change the electoral calculus as occurred in Georgia, where the Libertarian Party candidate received 2 percent of the vote, forcing the two parties’ nominees into a December 6 runoff. More voters consider themselves “independents” (35 percent) than either Republicans (33 percent) or Democrats (29 percent).
In addition, many Americans are deeply unhappy with the leaders and policies of both parties, including those they typically support. This fact is troubling for our politics but good news for the gospel.
THE “DOUBLE-NEGATIVE ELECTION”
Writing for The Atlantic, political commentator Ronald Brownstein called the recent midterms the “double-negative election.” He explained: “Most Americans consistently say in polls that they believe that President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats have mismanaged crime, the border, and, above all, the economy and inflation. But roughly as many Americans say that they view the modern Republican Party as a threat to their rights, their values, or to democracy itself.”
He cited an NBC national survey in which half of registered voters said they disagreed with most of what Mr. Biden and congressional Democrats want to do. However, more than that said the same about congressional Republicans and Mr. Trump. In a different survey, about half of all voters said they had little, or no, confidence in either party to improve the economy.
