Politics is dead: This year, avoid the quadrennial silliness.

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Jan 15, 2016

2016 is a presidential election year in America. Most citizens will fasten their attention on the Republican and Democratic candidates. A minor third-party candidate may emerge. Even those with outstanding Catholic values will invent some reason for insisting it is absolutely essential to elect Candidate X. A large number will deny that any other conclusion is morally possible. And nearly everyone will denounce any failure to vote as an abandonment of both responsibility and hope.

Serious Catholics who pour time, energy and money into the process of getting their preferred candidate elected will—once again—waste their precious resources. The candidate anointed by our secular high culture will once again coast to victory. Those who recognize either the natural law, Divine Revelation, or both, will end up disappointed. Worse still, in four more years the repetitive proof that their efforts make no discernible difference will be forgotten. Sadly, the quadrennial silly season continues to cycle around. It is upon us now.

I recognize that in the broad scheme of human affairs, politics is hardly irrelevant. Even when effective political action is largely out of reach, there will always be at least a few people who are called to deep political involvement, a few more who ought to keep their eye on things to watch for opportunities, and more than a few who are prepared to step up their commitment in those unusual instances which offer a good chance of success. I cannot morally condemn another’s continued interest in American politics; nor can I pronounce from on high that nobody should pay attention, contribute, or work for political ends.

But I can make the case that, in the United States today, moral politics is effectively dead.

A politics out of reach

I suspect that all mass societies strike a death blow to democratic institutions. But whether this is true or not, it seems clear that American politics is beyond the current reach of citizens with values rooted in anything other than the spirit of the age. The overwhelming majority of Americans are taught from birth that they are the most free people in the world; that they have the finest government in the world; that the only acceptable value system is the moving target imposed by our educational and journalistic elites; that all religion is at once subjective, private and dangerous; and that the only way to create a safe and comfortable society is through bureaucratic regulation by the State.

The dominant American attitude toward law and society is shaped by secular utopianism. Exalted rhetoric is coupled with an increasing slavery to State-regulated passions. The process is eerily reminiscent of totalitarianism, or perhaps merely of bread and circuses. Since our minds have been darkened by a secular ideology that rejects grace, most of us can no longer even see the obvious causes of the continuous destruction of core social goods that plagues our declining culture.

The broad cultural consensus that man must stand in the place of God—which makes human government the sole determinant of value—has put effective politics beyond the reach of anyone who sees reality whole. We have steadily slipped away from a culture in which law was limited by a higher source of values, through a culture in which intellectually-abused minorities desperately seek protection from legal punishment through conscience clauses, and finally into a culture which no longer makes a pretense of protecting anyone who holds time-honored values—which are now regarded as subversive.

Nothing could be more natural than to restrict subversives. Mental and moral slavery (and, increasingly, physical slavery) are increasingly explained as the necessary price of freedom. And even if potential “subversives” are rendered irrelevant most often through cultural mind tricks, politics in America—and especially higher politics—is out of the reach of anyone who has a coherent conception of the Good.

Persistent evangelization

We cannot expect huge numbers of Americans to suddenly rediscover the natural law, even if it is written in their hearts. Our unpromising situation will almost certainly continue until we are able to re-evangelize huge numbers of our countrymen. This re-evangelization is not just a matter of proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord in some personal and ultimately salvific sense; it is a matter of insisting that the Lord of the Universe, and the laws He has written into His Creation, must be honored day by day in every aspect of life, both private and public. Without a total collapse of the secular order, we would be wise to expect such a major undertaking to proceed slowly.

Barring extremely unlikely circumstances, politics will be out of reach in America (and, yes, in most of the West) until this transformation takes place. The chief argument to the contrary—that more and more small prolife laws have been passed at local levels in recent years—relies for its power on a forgetfulness of how low we now set the bar for considering something “prolife” (like getting some helpful regulation passed for a non-prolife reason), and of how often such little victories are later invalidated by higher powers. Even on this most hotly-contested front, the overall trajectory has been down for over 50 years.

In any case, our betters have already managed to re-architect the regulatory State to make the family all but irrelevant. We have little real choice but to work for conversion or await destruction, or perhaps to take advantage of the latter to achieve the former. Evangelization alone can make politics relevant again to men and women of good will. Even in the order of nature, only Christ saves.

That is why I am casting a pre-emptive vote against being caught up once again in the silly season. We must opt out of our cyclical exercise in self-deception. We must choose not to place our bets on the quadrennial horse race, wasting our energy and our resources on the political equivalent of an entertainment cycle. Indeed, entertaining candidates (or those who are made to appear most amiable on television) often attract votes. But few voters understand the policy issues that their choices imply—and most could care less. They prefer cultural rhetoric to “every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt. 4:4).

The American presidential election is the Super Bowl of politics. Yes, life is more fun (and our future seems less bleak) when we have colors to root for, a team to cheer. But the playoff system (the American party and primary system) is all but unworkable. The substantive difference in what candidates will actually try to accomplish is typically small. Every politician must ultimately hew very close to the acceptable cultural line to have any chance of winning enough votes. And again, in mass societies, most people either vote as they have been taught or told to vote, or do not vote at all.

So what is the point?

My point is simply this: For the vast majority of us, it is the height of folly to be distracted by an unmerited trust in American politics from our primary duty of strengthening the Church and proclaiming Christ’s message, a duty that is as civic as it is religious. We can search the Gospel in vain to find political exhortations to anything beyond obeying legitimate political authority and praying for political leaders (Rm 13:1-8; 1 Tm 2:1-4). And we can search through all of Scripture without finding more definitive political advice than to “put not your trust in princes” (Ps 146:3-4).

Even St. Paul, when he was in a prison built by politics, did not ask to be freed, but instead asked only this:

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving; and pray for us also, that God may open to us a door for the Word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear, as I ought to speak. Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. [Col 4:2-5]

So don’t be fooled. I would be delighted to be proved wrong, but the odds are overwhelming that we will be more faithful to Christ and do far more good if we pay only peripheral attention to politics in 2016. We have a strong moral obligation to remain faithful to our baptismal calling, to remain focused on what Our Lord has called each of us by name to be and to do. Let us make a pact. This year, let us renounce our characteristic political silliness—and our characteristic political waste.

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Next in series: The Death of Politics, revisited with critics in mind