Opposing Evil
A reflection on elections—and insurrections
I’m writing this on the eve of the 2024 United States federal election. Depending on who wins, I may have to go back and update it.
I suspect that after November 5, the “United States” will no longer be very united. Let’s face it: the country’s more split now than it was ahead of the first Civil War.
Notice my wording there: I said “the first Civil War.” Because I’ll be shocked if there isn’t another. The only question, for me, is who’s going to start it.
The true “deplorables”
Back in 2016, then-presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton opined that “you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” whom she identified as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it.”
She soon expressed “regret” over the remark—only to now, eight years later, double-down on it, asserting that she was actually “too kind.”
Well, in saying the following, I don’t want to be either “too kind” or too harsh. I’m gonna go with the first of Merriam-Webster’s definitions of deplorable: “deserving censure or contempt”—and to censure someone means “to formally reprimand” them or “find fault with [them] and criticize [them] as blameworthy[.]”
With those definitions in mind, I say this: The true “deplorables” are the conservative and/or Christian “never-Trumpers.” After all, one expects irrationality and evil from leftists—and especially now from the sold-out-to-Satan Democrats—so when it happens, I’m indignant but not shocked. What truly angers me, on the other hand, is those who could do something to stem the tide of evil but choose to do nothing.
That is truly nauseating.
This election isn’t about Trump. It’s about freedom vs. tyranny. If you’re conservative but a “never-Trumper,” you desperately need to look past the man and consider what’s at stake. Harris and her fellow Marxist radicals want precisely what they’ve already shown us in the past eight years1 that they’re really after:
Elimination of voter ID;2
Unfettered illegal immigration, with amnesty for those already in the country (perhaps 20 million or so)—most of whom, if granted the right to vote, will vote Democrat;
Unhindered access to abortion, with “ ‘eliminat[ion of] the filibuster’ to pass a bill reinstating abortion rights nationwide”3;
Unhindered access to “gender-affirming care”—i.e., the perverse ruination of our children via “transgender” medical treatments—and the prosecution of parents who refuse to go along with this deviance and degradation;
Economic “equity”—not equality, meaning equal access to opportunity; but rather equal outcomes; this is Marxism, and is the economic ruination of any society that adopts it;
Weaponization of the “justice” system against dissenters4;
More of what we’ve already seen in spades: collaboration between government Marxists and Big Tech in order to censor the flow of information in society, and promote instead Marxist propaganda;
Expansion of the Supreme Court with Marxist judges in order to perpetually swing its collective judgments leftward;
On foreign policy: keep the Ukraine-Russia war going, eventually bankrupting the nation and pushing us closer to World War III.
As I said, the leftists have already made it abundantly clear that these are the things they’re after. Thus in the view of Michael Rectenwald, writing for Chronicles magazine,
A Harris presidency would mean that the Orwellian trauma will only be intensified. Doublespeak, gaslighting, the erasure of history, and in Andrzej Łobaczewski’s vernacular in Political Ponerology, “reversive blockades,” or the “big lies” that amount to the reverse or inverse of the truth, will be issued unironically and abundantly. The nonplayer characters (NPCs) among the population will believe them, while anyone who demurs will be labeled “weird” and promptly eliminated.
Such considerations led Newsweek’s senior editor-at-large Josh Hammer to assert: “This Tuesday's particular presidential election is . . . the most important election of our lifetimes” in part because “Harris is the most ideologically left-wing, intellectually deficient, and wildly unprepared presidential candidate in the nation's history.” Hence the stark, dramatic title of his editorial: “The Final Choice: Civilizational Arson Versus Civilizational Sanity[.]”
“Civilizational sanity” is tied to Trump’s 2024 policy platform, which is light-years closer to the Biblical worldview than is Harris’s. It’s not even comparable.
“This is not your grandfather's Democratic Party,” says Hammer. “Are you paying attention yet?”
The never-Trumpers sure aren’t. If they all changed their minds and opted to support the GOP this time around, Trump’s election victory would be a slam-dunk, and American Marxism could be staved off for years to come.
To summarize: You have a choice between an agenda that is overtly evil—and one that overlaps the views and values of the Bible. The latter agenda will improve the lot of Americans as a whole—while the former agenda will likely destroy it forever.
If you actually choose not to stem the tide of evil, when you could have done something about it—then yes, you’re deplorable. Rather than promoting righteousness in your society, you’re aiding and abetting unrighteousness. Rather than loving your neighbor by standing in the gap between them and the abuse of government power—you’re aiding and abetting the Beast.
If Harris “wins,” then whatever evils she commits—you let it happen.
And don’t give me the absurd argument that “voting for a lesser evil is still voting for evil.” That’s an absurd argument because in a society with elected governments, we are always voting for “the lesser evil”—because all human beings are evil. You’ll never have a perfect candidate to elect, and therefore any policy agenda will have shortcomings and in some way reflect the sinful nature of those who wrote it.
It always comes down to making the choice that will nudge society in the right direction.
So . . . what, then, should happen if society does not move in the right direction on November 5th?
A true—and justified—insurrection
In my honest opinion, a second American civil war was instantly justified in 1973, with the Roe v. Wade decision. Nationwide legalization of the slaughter of innocent unborn Americans by their fellow citizens justifies revolt and the elimination of murderers and those who enable them.
Full stop.
But insurrection is further justified by a wicked administration’s attempt to circumvent or destroy the Constitution. Which segues to the following point.
This isn’t a Romans 13 violation. Christians are, rightly, quite wary of disobeying something the Apostle Paul wrote about secular government:
Everyone must submit to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist are instituted by God. So then, the one who resists the authority is opposing God’s command, and those who oppose it will bring judgment on themselves. [Romans 13:1-2]
There are two reasons why this passage does not prohibit some revolutions. (1) If you read verses 3-7, it’s clear that the governance model Paul gives us here presupposes a government that is, in fact, executing justice on behalf of citizens. I infer from this that if a regime becomes the predominant perpetrator of evil, rather than its punisher, then it no longer qualifies as a God-established “authority.”
(2) In a modern-democratic context—and I use the term “democratic” loosely, because technically the United States is a republic—the true authority is a nation’s constitution. Elected officials are obligated to uphold that constitution.
This means that if an administration violates the constitution, then to oppose that administration is, in fact, being faithful to the real authority.
The U.S. Constitution recognizes and safeguards a human being’s right to life. Since the unborn are human beings, then Roe v. Wade meant that the federal government, along with state governments, were in violation of the Constitution. They were legalizing mass murder. This means that conservative states which were predominantly pro-life had every right to oppose the federal government at this point; indeed, to overthrow it. Heck, not just the “right”: the duty, both moral and Constitutional.
If we are now to have a Kamala Harris administration that expands and entrenches the “right” to slaughter babies—how much more is a revolution justified? Now add to that all the other unconstitutional and tyrannical things in the radical Democrat agenda: if Harris “wins” tomorrow—then insurrection is justified. A real insurrection. Not like the overemotional and weaponless protest that occurred on January 6, 2021.
I assert here and now that if Trump “loses” this election—note the quotation marks—he should launch an immediate revolution in order to preserve the Constitution-based United States as we know it. He would surely win: the majority of America’s soldiers and police forces are already pro-Trump.
When I suggested this to a libertarian friend of mine lately—cuz he’s the kind of person I can voice such thoughts to without being attacked for it—he was a bit taken aback. But I pointed out that revolution now would entail much less suffering for Americans than to allow home-grown Marxism to gain political control, ruin the country, and—if it went as far as the Chinese or Soviet varieties—end countless lives.
Moreover, a Marxist “Amerika” would also mean the end of freedom across the West, because NATO would itself then become leftist, and eliminate traditional Western freedoms.
A Harris victory tomorrow likely entails a new Western dark age—and, from a purely Christian perspective, maybe even the End-time: the foundation of a Marxist world government that will be ruled by the Antichrist.
So, yeah: you could say November 5th kinda matters.
The aftermath of a Trump-led revolution
In the event of a Harris election “victory” and a Second Civil War, I’d suggest a three-pronged reconstruction of the nation by conservatives and libertarians:5
Ban from future political office any elected officials who acted to undermine the Constitution—and prosecuting those who are deemed to have been specifically treasonous.
Massive deregulation of the business sector, along with a paring-down of tax-funded social services, in order to stimulate the rapid comeback of the economy. (This would to some degree parallel the aggressive fiscal overhaul being carried out by Javier Milei, libertarian president of Argentina, who’s in the process of reviving that nation’s virtually ruined economy.)
De-Marxification of leftist Americans: this is perhaps the most important facet of the proposed reconstruction. In postwar Germany, the Allies’ “de-Nazification” program sought the removal of Nazi influence from German society, politics, and education. Through trials, purges, and reeducation, it identified and punished prominent Nazis, while reorienting public institutions and fostering democratic values.
Now some, like university political-science teacher James L. Payne, question that program’s effectiveness:
The Hitler regime of 1933 . . . represented a bizarre departure from a long democratic tradition. . . .
After the war, the country reverted to its peaceful political tradition. Hitler’s ideas were thoroughly discredited, his thugs disappeared, and the nonviolent democratic leaders of the prewar era came forward. . . . Given this precondition, democracy came into being naturally.
One might argue the same thing in regard to a “Marxified” United States: it has departed from an otherwise democratic (or small-r republican) tradition. That tradition is, of course, enshrined in the Constitution. This implies that even if the post-WW2 “de-Nazification” program was not as strong a factor as had been hoped—that is, it wasn’t solely responsible for turning Germany around—nonetheless a similar program in a post-civil war America can simply tap into its Constitutional roots.
Think of such a program as a mirror-opposite to the entrenchment of “DEI”—diversity, equity, and inclusion—ideology in a host of American institutions, both public and private.6 A post-revolt “de-Marxification” program would seek to (a) weed out and eliminate DEI and any other strand of Marxist ideology, by (b) tapping into an already-existing heritage of freedom and personal responsibility.
It’s already in America’s collective DNA: the nation’s founders and writers of the Constitution rejected—violently!—the authoritarianism of the British monarchy. It’s just that in recent decades Marxist mutations have entered in and must be eliminated. Citizens will still be free, privately, to think and say what they like, of course. We aren’t talking about eliminating the First Amendment here. But institutional Marxism—which really does exist, unlike the fabled “institutional racism”—can and must be hunted down and destroyed like the cultural cancer it is. Or, as Newsweek editor Josh Hammer has written elsewhere, “Slay the DEI Leviathan.”7
A “nonviolent” alternative
I put quotation marks around “nonviolent” because the following suggestion entails a nonviolent stance on the part of those who undertake it—but would no doubt receive violence from the Marxist authorities.
The nonviolent alternative to a revolution is simply this: If the Marxists take over, be ungovernable. Governors of conservative states should refuse federal orders, and should be discussing with each other the possibility of a “peaceful divorce” from the U.S. as we know it. And ordinary citizens must, in the words of Russian dissenter Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “live not by lies”: refuse to accept government propaganda and let it control your decision-making.
But this is a hard road. Yes, harder than a post-election, rip-the-bandaid-off revolution. Simple ungovernability is an option, but achieving regime-change in this fashion will take much more time, during which the Marxist overlords will destroy the country and take many lives in the process.
And for this reason I say: if Trump doesn’t win—he’d better conquer.
†
That is: both in opposition to Trump’s presidency, and during the Biden-Harris regime.
At the state level, the most extreme example is California governor Gavin Newsom’s recent law “that prevents local governments from requiring voters to present identification at the polls, a law aimed at curbing conservative efforts in cities like Huntington Beach.” If Harris “wins” the election, there’s no reason to think that won’t become the law of the land nationwide.
Marni Rose McFall, “Kamala Harris’ Abortion Filibuster Move Explained,” Newsweek (25 Sept. 2024 [accessed 4 Nov. 2024]).
Case in point: the federal Department of Justice recently sued Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin to prevent him from purging the state’s voter rolls of non-citizens, even though voting by non-citizens attempting is a crime. The Supreme Court had to intervene to uphold Youngkin’s right to uphold constitutional law.
This is somewhat inspired by the way the Allies handled Germany in the aftermath of World War II.
See also John Tierney, “DEI v. Science,” City Journal (27 Aug. 2024 [accessed Nov. 4]).
A model to emulate is Oklahoma’s banning of DEI in universities and government agencies last year. See also Scott Yenor, “If We Want Western Civilization To Survive, DEI Cannot,” The Federalist (7 Mar. 2024 [accessed 4 Nov. 2024]).