While driving today, I caught a conservative talk radio show on a local channel in Upstate South Carolina. I didn’t catch the name of the host, but he was in the vein of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, but with a better sense of humor. A black guy named Vern called in and was questioning a statement the host made about blacks only voting for Obama because he was black and for no other reason. Vern took offense to that, saying that the black political conscience is more complicated than that. Vern said many black people were voting for Obama because they thought he was the best man for the job. And then, in obligatory form, the host rambled on about how Obama’s lack of experience makes him blatantly unfit to the lead the country.
Vern then counterattacked. He began his thought by, I think, beginning to point out that Republicans talk about Obama’s lack of experience ad nauseum, erstwhile, seemingly ignoring the fact that those who are leading, the Cheney’s and the Bush’s (throw McCain’s three decades of service into the mix), and still with all that experience, the country’s economy is in a wreck and we are thought of as chickenfeed overseas. That’s a paraphrase of course, but just as Vern was beginning to make his point, said host interrupted and cut to a commercial.
Nice move.
After the break, Vern had shifted gears and was reiterating the point he made earlier about the black political conscience being more complicated and learned than many may think. Since Vern never got to fully make his point, allow me. Republicans talk a lot about how we need experienced leaders to be able to handle the complex issues of our day. But Bush is supremely experienced, as a second-term president, and before that, years as the head man in Texas. Cheney? Decades of experience as a public servant? McCain? Decades.
Yet, with all that experience, the economy’s a boondoggle and Afghanistan and Iraq are boondoggles. Experience does not always equal competency. Experience does not always imply genuineness. Experience does not always mean someone has the nation’s best interests at heart. Last, experience does not always equal trustworthiness.
Now, I’m not going to argue that Obama or anyone else is anymore trustworthy than folks in the Republican camp. Bottom line: they are all politicians. But, there is something to be said for fresh voices and fresh ideas. Republicans have droned on about Reagan’s trickle-down economics for decades, meanwhile, ignoring their own professed Christian beliefs, specifically, tucked away in Matthew 19:24:
“Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God,” Jesus said.
Rich and wealthy people aren’t blessed. Poor people are. Rich and wealthy people (and even middle class) aren’t the ones we should seek to help (through tax cuts and incentives). Poor people are. So, following their own set of beliefs, Republicans, particularly evangelicals who sign on to the trickle-down economics mantra, have it all wrong, and this economic theory has floated around for decades with little in the way of fresh ideas from the Republican camp about economics.
If those on the right truly put the spiritual muster to their politics, they would find complication after complication with their way of reasoning when held up to the light of the Bible. (By the way, this is assuming that Christianity has any place whatsoever in the realm of politics. I would argue that is does not, since Christ seemingly stood above and beyond the political and governmental machinations in his time on this earth. Should Christians also be neutral and/or aloof when it comes to political workings as was Christ? I suppose that would be for another, very large and complicated, discussion.)