A Movement of A People: #Trumpism as the New Exodus
Exodus. It is 3,500 B.C. It is a hot day east of Memphis at the edge of the waters. With the Egyptian army at their backs and the sea in front of them, certain of the Hebrews hesitate.
“Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.”
America today is in Egypt. The great industry of ordinary men and women has been idled to fill the granaries of the administrative state with the fruits of globalism. The misery of this once enviable middle class—now the working (when it can) poor—is plain to see in statistics of opiate addiction, broken and half-formed households, failing education, and retreating health.
Trumpism is not an exodus to a new land, of course. America remains the Promised Land. Still, Trumpism no less overturns the order of the administrative state than the exodus of the Hebrew slaves overturned the order of Rameses.
Here we find ourselves, at the brink of the curling, salty waves. #NeverTrump conservatives, who trust not, hesitate before the waters. They long for reconciliation with Egypt. They fear they might die in the desert, on the way to a rebirth of self-government.
“What truly matters is not which party controls our government but whether our government is controlled by the people.” —Donald J. Trump, Inaugural Address.
Let the American people go, Trump says. But the heart of the administrative state, at one time at least theatrically committed to elections, has hardened. And just as the armies of Egypt pursued the departing sons and daughters of Abraham, the security and prosecutorial apparatus of the administrative state pursues the voters that cast ballots for Trump, hoping to restore their docile submission, by removing a President from office.
Here we find ourselves, at the brink of the curling, salty waves. #NeverTrump conservatives, who trust not, hesitate before the waters. They long for reconciliation with Egypt. They fear they might die in the desert, on the way to a rebirth of self-government.
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