Here we are on the eve of Christmas, that day of joy set aside for celebrating the birth of Christ who came down to earth 2,000 years ago to show mankind the way to eternal salvation.
Yet, the present mood of America at Christmas 2021 seems better captured by Jimmy Carter in his “malaise speech” in July of 1979, several days before he cashiered half of his Cabinet.
“The threat” to America, said Carter, “is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.”
Carter’s speech, reflecting the mood of the nation, was initially well received. But when his dirge became contrasted with the optimism about America of Ronald Reagan, Carter was sent packing. He lost 44 states.
The malaise speech came to mind while perusing the latest polls about how Americans feel about the institutions and the individuals who are directing the course of the world’s greatest democratic republic.
Of President Joe Biden’s performance, the Economist, Politico and Rasmussen are all posting approval ratings, not yet a year into Biden’s term, that have sunk to 43 and 42%.
While nearly half of Americans approved of the job the Supreme Court was doing last July, Gallup finds that that figure has now plunged to an all-time low for the high court of 40%.
How many Americans approve of the job Congress is doing?
One in seven Americans, 14%. Two out of every three Americans, 63%, disapprove of Congress’s performance, a 49-point gap.
Is America on the “right track” under the new administration?
According to the Economist and Politico polls, 63% of the nation answers, “No.” In the Economist poll, only one in four Americans, 26%, said their country was on the right track.
These polls raise some fundamental follow-on questions:
How long can a democracy endure if it continues to generate such sweeping rejection from the people in whose name it purports to act?
How long before the American people, who consistently show a lack of confidence in the popular branch of government and in the course in which it is steering the nation, begin to lose confidence in the democratic system itself?
If democracy is continuously perceived as failing, can it survive?
Clearly, among the reasons for our present division and national malaise is that we have lost the great animating cause earlier generations had: the Cold War.
Americans have found no substitute cause to replace the Cold War and no substitute adversary like the late Soviet Empire.
George H.W. Bush’s “New World Order” excited only the elites. George W. Bush’s crusade for democracy did not survive the Afghan and Iraq forever wars he launched in its name.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s “rules-based order” will suffer the same fate.
And even as we are losing faith in the democratic institutions and individuals who run them, Americans seem, too, to be losing faith in the faith of their fathers as well.
Woodrow Wilson, in his campaign for president, declared:
“America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the tenets of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture.”
Harry Truman wrote to Pope Pius XII in 1947, “This is a Christian nation.” He did not mean we had an official religion or established church. He meant what he said to a conference of attorneys general in 1950:
“The fundamental basis of this nation’s law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings which we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. … If we don’t have the proper fundamental moral background, we will finally wind up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State.”
What Truman was saying was consistent with what Thomas Jefferson was saying when he wrote:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.”
On April 6, 2009, Barack Obama, speaking in Turkey, declared that the United States no longer regarded itself as a Christian nation: “Although we have a very large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.”
But Obama’s assertion also raises a follow-up question:
If we were a Christian nation under Wilson and Truman, when exactly did America cease to be a Christian nation?
And is there a causal connection, a correlation between the loss of faith in Christianity among our people and the loss of faith in democracy?
And is the loss of faith in both reversible — or inexorable?
Merry Christmas!
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Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.” To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
We have a big fight on our hands to keep our freedoms under the Constitution, as all liberals are the devil and / or represent the evil of the devil.
Folks of this country have lost any meanfull leadership,we haven’t lost faith in our bible but most all faith in our countries so called leaders, Jimmy Carter was a downer Joe Biden is even worse along with his VP every day it is appreant we have to get them out before it becomes a nation at extreme risk.
Once anyone has truly accepted Jesus Christ as their lord and savior, you have faith in, trust and love Jesus Christ.
I personally can’t see anyone ever losing their faith in Jesus Christ, no matter what happens.
Now there are those who claim to be Christians for political or personal gain,
Like those who promote and encourage others to do things like abortions, LGBTQ lifestyle, transgender, etc.
John 8:42-47
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. 43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”
Thanks Joe for letting my boy Jimmy off the hook as the worst president ever. ;o)
Too much has been allowed into this country in the name of freedom that is contrary to Christian principles and values. These things spark ideological wars that vie for acceptance by the majority population. As support for them grows, more and more people abandon Christianity. The late Billy Graham used to hold rallies in many of the larger cities where we are now experiencing unprecedented levels of lawlessness and depravity. He touched America in a very profound way—and his crusades are sorely missed. We need that message consistently delivered across the land more than ever.
To fully advance the Demonic, Lying Socialist Democrat Party’s destructive agendas; dividing our citizens with hate and promote; rioting, burning, looting, open borders, gun control, radical feminism, abortion-on-demand, the LGBTQ lifestyle, unfettered sexual identity, transgender “gay marriage” and the like, the pagan Liberal left Democrats must do away with our Constitution, GOD, common sense, morality, Christian values and free religious exercise altogether.
Under the guise of “anti-discrimination.”