I’ve been thinking a lot about how my friends and acquaintances have been reacting to the 2020 election. I know there are sociologists and political scientists and others who are processing data to understand how this election played out on a grand scale, and I’m sure it will be studied for years to come, and I’m not going to try to jump ahead of their work here.
But I’ve been thinking about how this election feels different to me, especially how people have viewed the results and news reports. Obviously, there have been elections I was happy about in the past, and others in which I was disappointed. I’m sure others have felt the same.
But now….
Now there’s widespread doubt about the election itself. There are theories that entire states worked to defraud the election. The President himself has repeatedly called the results into question, and in fact has cast doubt on the entire voting process. I for one do not remember any election prior to this one that is similar. The anger and fear and suspicion, at least in my little corner of the world, is off the charts.
Why? Why is this election different? Was it closer? Of course not. The 2000 election was much closer. Was there more interference? So far, there’s no evidence of that. So what is it?
I keep coming back to the idea of a wide-spread conspiracy to defraud the will of the people. Why do people believe this now? In particular, why are people so ready to ignore everything every election official and security expert has said on this subject, and instead hold onto ideas that, at least legally, have so far shown to have almost no support.
And I think I’ve settled on at least one factor: Information Resistance.
TRUST NO ONE
There is a growing tendency for people to distrust experts in any field, to suspect anyone who works at a University, and to doubt anyone with actual experience and training. People have started to actively resist new information, especially when that information is contrary to what they already believe. Why? When did curiosity and gaining knowledge become a bad thing?
The problem is so much information is assaulting our brains every second – sometimes by choice, sometimes without our consent – that we cling desperately to anything that we feel is solid and familiar. We scroll social media and get information from a hundred sources n a matter of minutes. We walk into a coffeeshop and a news channel is dishing out facts and opinions by the second. No matter where we go, there is information flooding our mindspace, and as we feel ourselves buffeted by that flood, we grip ever tighter to a smaller rock of familiar views. It’s safe, and we “need” safe.
This is more common with people with a conservative view of the world, if you’re wondering. According to Jonathon Haidt, conservatives tend to see the world in more black-and-white terms, with clearly defined right and wrong. More liberal minded people tend to see the world in terms of gray, with right and wrong more on a continuum. In this case, it means that liberal people are more prepared to handle the information assault than conservative people. (sorry. Just the facts, my friends.)
So, if someone comes along and challenges that thing we are holding to (conservatism is good, for example), we react not just by disagreeing, but with anger, frustration, and insults. We attack not just their argument, but the person, and their worldview, and any other people that might be associated with “them.” (For example, notice how many times you may hear people say “liberals want to…” Is it likely that everyone that calls themselves a liberal wants the same thing? Do all of your friends that are conservative want the same thing?
NEVER LET GO
However, the root of it is fear. We are afraid, deep down, that the one thing we hold to is wrong. The one way that we’ve found to make sense of the world is now being questioned, and if we’re not aggressively resisting, we will just fall into the white-water rapids of information again, and who knows where we might end up.
And if people keep eroding that thing we’re holding to, we’re cling to it tighter and tighter, as the foundation gets smaller and smaller. This is why, on average, conservatives are far more likely to believe conspiracy theories with little to no information to back them up. We are already more inclined to want our pool of information to remain smaller and more easily defined. We already WANT to believe that there is an assault on what we believe, and we’re looking for a THEM to blame for our discomfort.
It’s the liberals, or a secret pedophile cabal, or the One world order, and so forth. We can’t believe that we were wrong or mistaken, so therefore somebody, somewhere must be lying to us and manipulating us.
KEEP IT SIMPLE
My friends, what if I told you that you can let that fear go? What if there is no grand conspiracy? What if people voted, and more people voted for a candidate than you expected, and that’s the end of the story? What if you accept that the world is what you are actually seeing? People are not playing 4-D chess. In fact, most of them can barely play 1-D chess. There is no secret master plan; there is just people trying to get what they can in the moment. Just. Like You.
Chuck Colson used to argue that wide-spread conspiracies are fairly hard to maintain:
“Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks.“ Is it likely there could be a decades long conspiracy that has remained hidden from any legitimate investigations, but somehow Bob on the Internet has discovered it through secret number codes?
My friends, forget the conspiracies. Forget the Deep State. Forget the idea that everyone is lying to you. You will drive yourself crazy in the end, and you will be no closer to the truth.
Ultimately, we hold to a small set of truths we “know” because it’s comforting. We fear information because we fear we will know less with every new fact we hear. We fear that maybe we were wrong. We fear that someone is coming to “steal” my sense of identity and surety. But what if our main source of identity was not our party, or our conservative viewpoint, or our sense of “what America is”?
What if the source of our identity was Jesus, and Jesus alone? All that new information suddenly becomes interesting, possibly enlightening, but no longer threatening. If the Rock we cling to is immovable and unchangeable, what have I to fear? If someone tells me that capitalism is evil, I have no visceral reaction, because capitalism is not central to knowing Jesus. It is not part of the foundation of who I am. I don’t see that idea (or that person) as a threat or an enemy, I just see them as another pilgrim trying to find their way.
CHOOSE PEACE
Put your trust in something solid – the Word of God. And I use Word in both senses here – Jesus as the Word, and the written Word of the Bible. Cling to Jesus. Pray. Sing praises. Cry before Him. Let His peace and comfort wash over you. Spend time reading Scripture. Then spend some more. Spend as much time reading Scripture as you do scrolling facebook/twitter/parler/whatever, or as much time as you have FoxNews/Oan/DailyNews/etc on.
Instead of having a news station on in the background all day, have sermons from pastors you trust. Thanks to the pandemic, there are thousands of hours of sermons online. Soak in the Word. Listen to music that brings glory to Jesus (just the music, not the commentary on the radio). Study commentaries from the saints of the past.
My friends, you will know a stability and a peace that you may have forgotten about in the last few years. Remember what you used to know. Remember that there is someone who loves you just the way you are; and He loves “them” just as much. Those of the “other” side are not evil, or at least not any more evil than those on “my” side. We are all sinners, worse than we could ever understand. And we are all made in the image of God, more glorious and loved that we could conceive in our wildest dreams.
We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, or secret pedophile rings, or George Soros, or the Deep State, or the liberal agenda, or the slippery slope to socialism. We are not called to wrestle to save America, or the Republican party, or capitalism. We wrestle against the enemy of our souls; we wrestle for the hearts of our neighbors, and our enemies. We wrestle against our own evil desires for control and secret knowledge.
We strive to know our Father more each day, and to walk closer with Christ with every step. That is the knowledge that we crave; that is the information that we never need to resist. That is our call. That is our Rock
Fear not.