Having entered uncharted waters since November 9th, I have been struggling with processing the outcome of the presidential election. I have noted that I recognize a peculiar behavior and thought process that two prominent groups share.
I do not doubt that there are people who belong to some faith that did not support nor vote for Trump, as I am sure there are people who are atheists who did. However, I do believe that these two groups must share to some degree one commonality: the ability to greatly suspend, deflect, avoid, or otherwise suppress reason, fact, and reality.
To begin with, the much older man-made atrocity, when it comes to rationale, logic, objectivity, skepticism – things that religion is very troubled with – it is beyond hard to argue with someone who pledges their life and values on faith, miracles, and myths. It should be a much shorter conversation when arguing with a believer over an alleged existence of a god, a proposed miracle, etc, but the pious side is typically rooted in their position and more often than not, will not bend to the appeal of truth that science has given towards human progress.
Here is the overlap for the Trumpers. Donald Trump is a pathological liar. There is no disputing that. There is plenty of audio and video recorded evidence where he contradicts himself. One parallel then is the speeches of Trump juxtaposed by most, if not, any religious book you might choose, because both flocks submit themselves to the lies and evidence-free substance they are being fed.
That is the what. As for the why, it comes down to a feeling of comfort. Beginning instead with the more recent man-made catastrophe, President-elect Trump, he was able to gain support of his voters, largely white middle-class Americans, by claiming that “the system is rigged”. By scapegoating the United States government as some corrupt monolith instead of a system with checks and balances and inevitable flaws, he delivered the comfort to those voters in red states who felt disenfranchised and cheated to the point that they would put up with his misogyny, bullying of handicap and veterans, incredible inexperience, and blatant vulgarity.
Similarly, religious people derive their sense of comfort from the grace of some god and allure of a heaven that promises eternal happiness, assuming they follow the rules. As long as they do right by what some male liaison directs them to do either by assembling in a house of worship or by the writings of men who lived centuries ago, their security blanket is there and everything is taken care of because “everything happens for a reason”, which is probably the worst pseudo-adage ever conceived and it is a tragedy it still gets uttered to this day.
What is dangerous for both groups, aside from being ignorant in their perceptions of the world, is further ignorance of the impact of their beliefs and decisions. I can't say for certain that this country was ever great but it certainly isn't headed in that direction as long as we have both a clueless, corrupt, deplorable president-elect and religious dogmatism roaming freely, ready to turn fascist at the drop of a swastika.
