ON THEOLOGY AND POLITICS
by Marc Batko (marc1seed@yahoo.com; freetranslations.foundation), 1/9/2025
Progress comes through the values of empathy and cooperation, not only through technology. In the 20th century, science and technology were promoted along with business schools and socially destructive myths like the self-healing market, money as a private matter, and idolatrous profit-maximization.
Now in the 2025 of late-stage financial capitalism, the three richest Americans have more wealth than 160 million citizens. Back in 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt saved democracy from a devastating depression through imaginative government investment and activism. Social security, minimum wages, farm subsidies, bank regulation, and state jobs building bridges, highways, libraries, schools, and hospitals restored public spirit and optimism for the future. The state is not a business or a housewife but can become indebted to help present and future generations. Do people remember the social contract that majority rule must be balanced with minority protection (cf. Loni Gunier) and that a social state is impossible without taxation of the rich?
Around 2000, Professor Robert McChesney asked “Is the Media Destroying Democracy?” We are bombarded with thousands of advertisements and told that nothing compares with a Honda car in the Happy Honda season! Redemption is for coupons, validation is for parking and conversion is what happens to poverty funds in the bank accounts of congresspersons! Lakes are for anti-freeze and mountain tops are for gravel! On the quiet, the country becomes a gigantic parking lot while billionaires seek to dismantle social security, Medicare and Medicaid! Why should I pay for affordable apartments for the poor?, the manipulated hyper-materialists and hyper-individualists ask.
“Man cannot live by bread alone,” we read in the Old Testament and in the story of Jesus’ temptation. The prophets warned that possessions can possess us and greed, self-righteousness and egoism can lead to a spiritless existence. The people are ahead of the government. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan tried unsuccessfully to destroy food stamps although he himself received government assistance when his father died.
Multiple Crises
The US on the eve of 2025 faces economic, political, social and cultural crises in a radically changed world. China and BRICS have a far greater share of the world’s population than the G7 (40% compared to 7%). Capital is invested to advance corporate interests and increasingly concentrated economic power. The Washington Consensus of privatization, deregulation and liberalized markets (the casino economy) is both discredited globally and tenaciously maintained. In Investor-State-Dispute-Settlement tribunals, corporations sue states for lost future profits while states cannot sue corporations. Speculation and financial products are promoted while affordable apartments and the taxation of corporations and the rich are neglected. Regulatory agencies are often captured by oligopolist corporations and the revolving door between regulators and industry insures the increased wealth of billionaires. Elites obsessed with their privileges and power block public housing in city after city. The lower and middle classes take out loans to survive since their expenses exceed their incomes.
Public interest economists and economic solutions could respond to the crises and tackle the causes and not merely the symptoms. The celebrity culture, the “business-friendly” media, and unwinnable wars make the discovery of truth extremely difficult. With the right-wing advance, the culture of ignorance drowns out the culture of truth, Henry Giroux laments. As economist Ulrich Thielemann explains, profit-making is different than profit-maximizing. The neoliberal model based on the myths of the self-healing market, money out of nothing, financial markets returning to equilibrium and money as a private matter focuses on profit, not investment.
In the 1960s, economist John Kenneth Galbraith emphasized that large firms dominate prices and distort markets. In “Junk Economics,” futurist Michael Hudson analyzed the unspeakable housing crisis in Vancouver, B.C. and concluded “banks and the real estate sector get all the profits and those needing housing are helpless.”
On http://www.thephilosophicalsalon.com, Fabio Vighi describes the recent phenomenon of “emergency capitalism” and explains how a new emergency seamlessly replaces the last emergency and the Fed again prints hundreds of billions of new dollars. “We can have democracy or concentrated wealth, not both,” declared Justice Louis Brandeis, the longest-serving Supreme Court justice in American history.
Inequality hurts. Pain and insecurity pervade society when the common good, affordable apartments and SROs (single-resident occupancy units) are neglected decade after decade. Massive state investment is absolutely necessary since labor and material costs are always increasing.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees supports and assists 59 million refugees and returnees. Making a financial contribution on their website can make people positive and resilient in a world filled with the self-righteous and nihilists. Pallet.shelter.com, an Everett, Washington firm, can build 60 lockable transitional shelters in 10 days for $5500 each.
Back in 1985, the German economics professor Hans Christian Binswanger wrote “Arbeit ohne Umweltzerstoerung” (Work without Environmental Destruction: Strategies of a New Economic Policy.” “The only way to solve these three major problems – full employment, guaranteeing an intact nature and balance of trade – is to break out of the system and become committed to qualitative growth.”
Government by Tantrum
According to MSNBC, the first Trump administration (2015-2020) amassed more debt than all US presidents combined. In his two 2017 tax heists, Trump gave $8 trillion to corporations and households with over one million dollars. In shocking contrast to past administrations, there were no hearings. The pathological liar whose 30,000 lies were listed by the Washington Post claimed his term was the most prosperous in US history.
With Trump, election campaigns are trashed as defamation campaigns. The scaremonger, convicted felon, and sexual predator repeats the slogans “criminal Joe” and “criminal Kamela,” fake news, schools for gender change, rates women from 1 to 10 and condemns judges as biased and prejudiced when he loses a case. Respect for tradition, difference, and the past seems drowned out by intimidation, demonization, and obsequious submission. Policy, principles, debates, and exchanging and changing viewpoints could not survive in a polarized and paralyzed political environment.
After COVID, travel and culture seem demolished just as travel agencies only appear in history books. People survive on social security, subsidized streetcars and local transportation while bombarded by advertising on television and the Internet.
The Trump-cult, racists, Zionists, and fundamentalists all seem to be characterized by hate preachers. Even though 27 million Russians died in defeating the German army at St. Petersburg, the anti-immigrant AfD (Alternative for Germany) now leads the traditional parties in the Bundestag. Christian nationalism is a dreadful illusion where the infinite boundless love of God is replaced by the perfect nation.
The US is a hyper-materialist and hyper-individualist nation where celebrities and sports drowns out spirituality and intercultural exchange. Food and fashion history supplant social history. Many Americans cannot even identify the three branches of government or the current vice-president.
Trump, the Digital Demagogue
How should Donald Trump be understood? Raised by his father Fred Trump, he went to a military school and was told “Kill, kill, kill.” Roy Cohn, a main advisor to the barbaric anti-communist Sen. Joe McCarthy, insisted: never admit a mistake and blame the weakest.
Is Trump a pathological narcissist enamored of himself, convinced he knows everything and is the only one who understands the economy, immigration, and the court system? The pathological liar and con-man claims to have a better memory than anyone though he has hardly read any books at all! One of his professors at Wharton said he thought he knew everything before he came to Wharton!
In “The Present Age,” the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said: “Our culture is not one of courageousness but of advertising and publicity.” “Without humility, there is no sense of wonder.” Truth must well up within each individual and cannot be commanded with a club or cudgel. Humility is the true human strength, not mud-throwing or name-calling!
To me, two metaphors come to mind in describing this man who like Hitler will say anything to get people to follow him. One is the fly that falls into our soup. Trump is a rambling incoherent, a xenophobe, misanthrope, misogynist, homophobe, child predator and business and insurance fraud. The second is the enraged bear tearing through the china shop. Trump threatened war on three countries at the UN General Assembly, called Mexicans “rapists and murderers” on multiple occasions, and slandered countries as “garbage.”
Trump is a clear and present danger of fascism. People even in rich America are conditioned and frightened. “Poisoners,” “vermin,” and “invaders” are terms of abuse common to Hitler and Trump. Again and again, Hitler repeated that “international Jewry was exterminating Germany.” “Total war” had to be waged; all power had to be given to the Fuhrer!
For as long as can be remembered, structural or systematic evil has given way to psychological or low-motivation explanations. Endogenous problems are called exogenous problems caused from the outside. Wars are always caused by fear, said the system-critical theologian Eugen Drewermann. US foreign policy has been dominated by unending wars, scapegoating, and projecting power. Seven million tons of bombs were dropped on little Vietnam. Three million Vietnamese were killed in that illegal, immoral and senseless massacre. Iraq, the ancient cradle of civilization of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, was destroyed in another 10-year slaughter. Freedom, democracy, and weapons of mass destruction were only the propaganda to disguise the campaign to seize their oil.
Problems do not disappear when ignored
On December 17, 2024, China agreed to a $400 billion deal with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that will change everything. They supply their oil and China builds dozens of 36-story skyscrapers to remedy catastrophic Arab housing. These skyscrapers can be concentrated in small areas since Arabs are not car-dependent. China has built marvelous metro-stations all over their country that are like palaces. High-speed trains often run 100 to 200 mph and greatly improve the lives of millions of Chinese (see the many videos onYouTube).
Hatred leads to blindness as in hatred of Russia (Russophobia), hatred of China, hatred of immigrants and hatred of gays. For decades, San Francisco and Vancouver B.C. were models of tolerance, anti-militarism and intercultural learning. Minds can be changed through social enlightenment, encouragement and love of life.
Theology of hope is a blocked tradition like prophetic theology, liberation theology, the social gospel, theology of peace and reconciliation. As a people of the future, believers follow an eschatological theology where God walks before them and is not only above them. Kairos time, the time of decision, is different from everyday time as Dietrich Bonhoeffer explained in his underground German Confessing Church guided by the 1934 Barmen Theological Confession. When authorities pretend to be absolute, they must be criticized for confusing the ultimate and the penultimate.
The universal needs the particular to be concrete and relevant. The particular needs the universal as a vision, utopia, or ideal. The infinite and transcendent God had to become particular in Israel and then in Jesus of Nazareth. Israel was a light by which all nations were to see themselves. Jesus was the suffering servant prophesied in the Psalms, Micah, and Isaiah 55. The scandal of particularity must be endured. God’s peace is beyond reason and human works.
Faith is a leap across seventy-thousand fathoms of water, a leap across all neoliberal myths and fairy-tales, Kierkegaard proclaimed.
Trump is a false teacher or false Christ who even declared himself “the Chosen One” “who didn’t mind being the Nelson Mandela of our time.’ In biblical history, Trump seems to embody Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon who destroyed the temple of Jerusalem in the sixth century B.C. and made slaves of the wandering children of Israel. The sign “Anything helps!” captures Trump’s emptiness and helplessness, a man without feeling, empathy, or intellect who pours out his vile and scorn on judges, politicians, the disabled, the poor, women, and immigrants. He is himself the problem since he lacks all understanding of tariffs, trade policy, and foreign policy! Nevertheless, he goes from rally to rally, judging women from 1 to 10, and declaring a “crime wave” where there is no crime wave. Pretending to “know everything,” he cannot be trusted to say anything truthful.
Public policy and public opinion are worlds apart. Dripping in nationalist rage, he threatens that all goods from Canada and Mexico will carry a devastating 25% tariff – as the reward for being America’s most important trading partners. Trump embraces authoritarian leaders and envies Xi for being president-for-life. He speaks of Canada becoming the 51st US state, occupying Greenland (as “vital for our economic security”), the Panama Canal, and even Canada. He is the personification of weakness, prejudice, and stereotypes though he pretends to be unerring.
“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” To Plato, skill, consistency, and experience were necessary for every person to be credible and trustworthy. Trump only wants to scare and intimidate people, a man of entertainment and distraction. Born with a silver spoon, his only experience has been tax- and insurance fraud, upgrading and downgrading his assets and hotel revenues!