Secularism's Failure: Part 1

Secularism is killing the American experiment. When people have no ethical foundation, they have no absolutes to control them or ground them to reality. Then they are left to perceiving everything as some sort of injustice or crime on the basis of it hurts their feelings or their notion of what should be considered "right" and "wrong". Once this occurs, they come after everything and everyone they believe to be in violation of the morals they choose to value at the moment. Right now what is valued is anything not connected with Trump, conservatism, or the narrative that has been created by whomever it is that is controlling the press.
I am not a Trump fan. I did not vote for the man in 2016 and I have NO DESIRE to vote for him this year. I do take more delight than I should in the anger that he creates from those on the left, but I have no desire to support him, his immorality, or his stupidity in leadership. He is indeed feckless and immature in his ability to lead and should never have been entrusted with the office of Washington, Lincoln, and Reagan. Yet, he has become a litmus test in many ways for people struggling to really understand the American experiment. America has never been a nation symbolized by one man, even though many outside her boarders reduce her to this picture. But those of us inside understand that the Executive branch of our government is an every changing office. I am on the seventh president of my lifetime. Carter was still in office at my birth, even if he only had a few months left, and I am now a man near 40 with the hope that an eighth president will be inaugurated in January of 2021 (For the record I do not desire that to be Joe Biden the presumptive Democratic nominee, perhaps Kanye West will overtake them both! You never know in 2020!)
In the eyes of many, Trump represents a regressive decision by Americans after the "hope and optimism" of the Obama years. We had elected our first president of color, and were viewed as progressing to some sort of utopian future by some. Those on the other side of the aisle viewed things slightly differently from a political and governing standpoint, and because of the concern of liberalism that was arising from most Americans feeling marginalized or unrepresented all together by their government, they elected a loud-mouth, neophyte in the realm of politics because they thought they were throwing off the status quo, and electing a true change maker. In the end they were electing what many on both sides knew to be an immoral, untrustworthy, self-promoter who was simply running in hope of building his brand.
Trump was never prepared for the task of being president and everything from Day 1 has displayed that. The best credentials Trump has ever had was that the people that hate him were the people that the right hated. In other words, he at least had the right enemies, and as we know, "The enemy of my enemies is my friend." This idea was what carried him to the White House, as well as the notion that experience in politics, actual intelligence, and personal morality where a standard of the past. "HEY! Clinton was a lousy moral example, but at least he governed as a centrist" seemed to become the motto of the very people that sought to impeach Clinton because of his infidelity. It's a great reminder that ANGER, BITTERNESS, and DIVISIVENESS are never good motivators for supporting a candidate, pastor, and any other person for that matter. It's also revealing how much FEAR became an instigator in the mind and hearts of those that choose to support Trump and continue to till this day.
What they fear is a lost ideal that I don't think America ever really possessed, or at least hasn't possessed since Woodrow Wilson brought in the Progressive Era, and potentially even before then. This is where secularism began to take its hold on the American Experience and where we will pick back up on this topic in my next posts...