We Should Have Seen It Coming: The Unraveling of American Democracy (Part III)

It is generally assumed that the fundamental problems we face as a society are political in nature and therefore have a “political” solution. But what if the strident political conflict we are rightly concerned about is symptomatic of a far deeper problem that is not simply a matter of public policy, or which political party holds the reigns of political power? That is the question I address in this post.

The Historical and Cultural Roots of Our Present Political Crisis

When it comes to the current “culture war” it is possible to speak of public culture as operating on two levels.[1] On the surface there is the “politics of culture,” or the battle over cultural issues like abortion, gay and transgender rights, immigration, and so on. In this sense, the culture war is about politics and political power, or the ability to implement certain public policies.  However, at a far deeper level there is the “culture of politics,” or implicit framework of meaning which underwrites our politics. Without this “deep structure” which is largely symbolic the form, function, and ideals of the political institutions and practices of our democracy simply do not make any sense. The deconstruction of notions of “truth” and “fact” in our politics at both levels poses a great challenge to our democracy. It this skepticism that autocrats use to gain control “flooding the zone with an unending barrage of lies that favor the leader and attack all other competitors.”[2] Let’s begin by further examining the nature of human cognition and its inherent fallibility.

What is Truth?

Why are people willing to believe conspiracy theories? The answer is deceptively simple—because they want to and because it is easy.[3] We might assume that people naturally seek out information that is true, but argue Haidt and other social psychologists, this misses the true nature of the moral psyche. The Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman suggests that our search for information is governed by “cognitive ease,” a process by which we avoid and resist inconvenient facts and bask in the flow of any information which tells us we have been right all along and confirms our view of the world.[4] 

In his groundbreaking book, The Righteous Mind Haidt similarly argues that our moral reasoning is less rational than we would like to admit. He maintains that we should abandon the “rationalist delusion” that “reasoning is the royal road to moral truth” and that “people who reason well are more likely to act morally.”[5] Using the central metaphor of a rider on an elephant, Haidt shows convincingly that when it comes to making moral judgments the rider (reason) generally serves the elephant (emotion/moral intuition). In other words, intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second—we use our reasoning powers to justify and explain the position we already hold, usually based on moral intuition.

Reasoning can take us to virtually any conclusion we want to reach, because we ask ‘Can I believe it?’ when we want to believe something but ‘Must I believe it?’ when we don’t want to believe. The answer is almost always yes to the first question and no to the second.[6]

Haidt also describes the power of political tribalism to reinforce our natural tendency toward confirmation bias. Why are people so divided by religion and politics? Not necessarily because some people are good and others evil. Rather, the best explanation is that our minds are geared toward groupish righteousness. Morality binds into ideological teams. But it also blinds us to the good in the opposing team and moral failings in our own. “Once people join a political team,” writes Haidt, “they get ensnared in its moral matrix. They see confirmation of their grand narrative everywhere, and it’s difficult—perhaps impossible—to convince them that they are wrong if you argue with them outside the matrix.”[7] People treat political opinions as “badges of social membership,” says political scientist Don Kinder. In other words, within a political atmosphere of extreme partisanship most voters use information to reinforce their membership in the group, not to discover what is true.[8] 

Observers of American society and political culture have noted that because of a variety of factors—social media, the “politicization” of nearly everything, postmodernism, etc.—we increasingly live in a post-truth world in which there is no real factual truth. Rather, what I want or most fervently desire to be true is true. In the transition from “factual truth” to “what I say is true” there is no “truth for us”—or collective, cohering, unifying truth. As one leading post-modernist put it, what counts is who (or what party) controls the narrative. [9]

Journalist Bonnie Kristian observes that there is a “knowledge crisis” in the public square. “We can’t agree about what we know or how we know it. The border between knowledge and opinion is disputed territory. Whether truth exists and can be shared between us is up for debate.”[10] Especially within the sphere of politics “victory matters more than truth and . . . success or convenience in the moment is more important than the long-term effects of epistemic carelessness or outright deception.”[11] Postmodernism adds another layer of epistemological madness. “It says you can’t see what I see, so you can’t know what I know or challenge what I believe. . . . In the throes of epistemic crisis, we look like nothing so much as the fool critiqued throughout the book of Proverbs: always seeking out information that pleases us (17:14), dismissive of wisdom (12:15), lacking common sense (10:21), and too happy to hear ourselves talk (18:2).”[12]

The Erosion of Trust in Our Institutions as Sources of Information

It goes without saying that a viable democracy requires public trust in our major institutions. Without trust in institutions as reliable sources of information, any democracy becomes dysfunctional. Trust is critical for a diverse society to be able to work together to achieve what Rauch refers to as an “epistemic operating system” for determining what is true and not true. However, public confidence in most of our institutions is at an all-time low.  According to a 2023 Gallup poll, the percentage of Americans who express a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in our institutions is a follows: police (43 percent), medical system (34 percent), organized religion (32 percent), public schools (26 percent), Supreme Court (27 percent), presidency (26 percent), newspapers (16 percent), big business (14 percent), and the U.S. Congress (8 percent).[13] 

How does the U.S. compare to other nations around the world? According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, which has measured trust in twenty-eight countries every year since 2000, the U.S. is among those nations with the highest levels both distrust and polarization.  Edelman documents a vicious cycle: distrust breeds polarization and polarization breeds distrust.[14] In this context of hyper-partisanship and distrust, truth is the first casualty. As Collins points out, “The ‘Outrage Olympics’ in media and social media, further inflamed by grievance politics,” have contributed substantially to the precipitous decline in trust in the veracity of our institutions.[15] 

The assault on truth is not limited to any one party or segment of our society. America’s truth decay did not begin the moment Donald Trump stepped into the Oval Office. His first administration (2016-2020) was simply the culmination of the erosion of truth in American politics and public discourse that has been decades in the making. What was new was both the sheer volume of his distortions, misrepresentations, and fabrications and his openly expressed disdain for facts and the truth. Trump thrives in a fact-free environment. Bill Adair, the founder of Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking website PolitiFact, has described Trump as “our nation’s most prolific and damaging liar.” He notes that in volume, the Washington Post counted 30, 573 false or misleading claims in his first term as president.[16] 

Following the 2020 election, Trump was interviewed by reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker for their book I Alone Can Fix It (2021). When he was asked why he encouraged people during his presidency to believe things that weren’t true, particularly regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, his response was: “Are you talking about disinformation or are you talking about lies? There is a more beautiful word called disinformation.”[17] Which begs the question: What is the difference between “disinformation” (i.e. false information which is deliberately intended to mislead the public) and factual lies? In any case, under Trump 2.0 the disinformation campaign continues.[18] 

However, even more serious than the volume of Trump’s falsehoods and disdain for facts has been his open and unrelenting attacks on the authority and independence of those institutions which comprise the “truth-telling infrastructure” of American democracy. This includes the media and journalists, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the intelligence community, and Courts which are supposed to protect the rule of law.[19] Trump has undercut the legitimacy of our democracy through his constant repetition of the Big Lie that the 2020 election was “stolen,” despite the rejection of such claims in 61 court cases and the inability of numerous independent investigations to find credible evidence of widespread voter fraud.[20] Nonetheless, for those election deniers who desperately wanted Trump to be re -elected, this narrative of a stolen election provided justification for the attempted coup on January 6, 2021. As of April 2022, over two-thirds (68 percent) of Republicans believed the disinformation regarding stolen elections.[21] During his second term as president, Trump has further undercut the independence and credibility of key democratic “truth-telling” institutions such as the DOJ, CIA, and FBI by filling them with loyalists who do his bidding. 

According to Adair, Republicans for various reasons have been more adept at creating a culture of lying.[22] But Democrats do not deserve a pass. Nearly a third (31 percent) of Democrats claims cited by PolitiFact were rated Mostly False or lower.[23] The bottom line is that Democrats also lie a lot, though not nearly as much as Republicans. Prior to the 2024 presidential election, members of President Biden’s inner circle desperately wanted to normalize his erratic behavior largely because of the threat of a Trump second term. So, they created a false narrative designed to hide the extent of his cognitive decline. In their book Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson write that the lessons from this sordid tale of deceit and denial go beyond one man and one political party. “They speak to more universal questions about cognitive dissonance, groupthink, courage, cowardice, and patriotism.” They note that George Orwell once wrote that “we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, imprudently twisting the facts so as to show we were right.”[24]

In 1984, his dystopian novel about a totalitarian government, Orwell wrote that the controlling regime’s most essential command was “to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.” In a 1943 essay he further noted that Nazi theory specifically denies that such a thing as “the truth” exists. When truth is so fragmented, so relative, a path is open for some “Leader or some ruling clique” to dictate what is to be believed. “If the Leader says of such of such an event, ‘It never happened’—well, it never happened.”[25] As one author puts it, when truth is nothing but what we say it is it loses its power. “We have only irreconcilable alternative facts based on data and an adversarial politics that uses data to manipulate the masses to our side. The only way to adjudicate them is through power, and not power in a positive sense—power to move oneself or to be moved toward what is true or good—but power in a negative sense, power as force leading to bullying, insults, coercion, threats of and the possible use of violence. . . .”[26] Truth—or propaganda in the guise of truth—becomes the tool demagogues use to master reality in the nihilistic struggle for power.

From Solidarity to a Culture of Nihilism

How did we get here? And what can we do about it? These are the questions that the evangelical sociologist James Davison Hunter seeks to answer in his vitally important book Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America’s Political Crisis. Unfortunately, his argument can only be briefly summarized here.  

Hunter emphasizes that politics is fundamentally shaped by culture. He argues that the "culture wars" are not just about surface-level disagreements over issues like abortion, immigration, or gun control, but reflect deeper cultural dispositions and values that often lie outside of rational debate. A functioning democracy rests on what he terms “solidarity,” namely “a framework of cohesion within which legitimate political debate, discourse, and action take place.”[27] Implicit within this framework is a mythos or “story that a people tells about itself—past, present and future.”[28] Using language borrowed from Augustine’s City of God affirmative solidarity reflects “common loves,” or a people’s common aims, purposes, and dreams.[29] 

Hunter acknowledges that Liberal democracy in the U.S. has always contained inner contradictions and faced deep conflicts over whom we should include and whom we should exclude. But historically, such conflicts took place within the context of an underlying, evolving solidarity, or culturally rooted worldview which he calls "the hybrid-Enlightenment." Here, Hunter cuts through the Gordian knot of the decades-long debate over whether America was founded as a “Christian nation,” or on the premises of Enlightenment rationalism. His answer is that the American experiment is rooted in syncretistic blending of both Christian ideas of natural theology and natural law and Enlightenment ideas of progress. This hybrid-Enlightenment was the source of political solidarity at the time of the founding. It was possible and culturally powerful in large measure, Hunter argues, because it was opaque. People could read their own beliefs and traditions into it.

But the hybrid-Enlightenment was also deeply flawed and plagued by inner contradictions. In recent years, the shared beliefs, values, and cultural narratives that once bound Americans together are no longer as strong or widely held. The solidarity once provided by the hybrid-Enlightenment has eroded, leaving a void filled by destructive logic of nihilism—the will to power and drive to destroy the “ideological other.”  The central paradox of our contemporary culture, Hunter argues, is that we have “nihilism without nihilists.” In other words, the average person on the street still believes there is a God or transcendence of some sort and adheres to certain values. Yet, nihilism is the operative reality of our public life and the institutions at the center of political power.

Drawing on the philosopher Nietzsche, Hunter sees ressentiment as a key driver and manifestation of this cultural nihilism. He defines ressentiment as "a narrative of injury that seeks revenge through a will to power."[30] He warned over a decade ago that much of the engagement of American evangelicals in the “culture war” was based on a heightened sense of ressentiment which “involves a combination of anger, envy, hate, and revenge as the motive of political action.”[31] A narrative of injury, or perceived injury, is central to the individual’s or group’s identity. This posture of ressentiment, he warned, is a form of political psychology that “is expressed as a discourse of negation, the condemnation and denigration of enemies in the effort to subjugate and dominate the those who are culpable.”[32] It is telling therefore that in 2024 election, over eighty percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump, who in his campaign rallies repeatedly promised his supporters, “I will be your retribution."

Ressentiment, however, is not limited to evangelicals or MAGA conservatives. It is a central feature of identity politics on both the left and right. “Indeed, it is increasingly hard to name an American who does not at least perceive himself to belong to a besieged, existentially threatened minority.”[33] As Nietzsche put it, every victim “instinctively seeks a cause for his suffering.” Ressentiment thus builds on a story of woundedness that is etched into individual and collective consciousness. Identity groups across the ideological spectrum seize upon narratives that exemplify the evil that must be repudiated and expunged from the land.

For left-leaning groups, ressentiment feeds on such abstractions as the “radical right,” “toxic masculinity,” “white supremacy” (or just “whiteness”), or “Christian nationalism.” For right-wing factions, the cause of all evil is “the radical left,” “socialism,” “woke elitism,” “the deep state,” “cultural Marxism,” or “secular humanism.”[34]  

Hunter concludes that a new “common culture” is emerging that is rooted in identitarian tribalism and fueled by ressentiment or narratives of injury. This common culture is guided not by shared ideals or values but by a fervid determination to dominate and eventually annihilate the opposition in a never-ending contest over power. This presents a formidable challenge to our democracy which depends on the rule of law and adherence to norms of democratic governance. The absence of credible and legitimate democratic authority fosters conditions for some type of authoritarianism in which coercion is the principle tool. What is common to all forms of authoritarian rule is the impulse to sidestep democratic process and impose by force their own conception of social and political solidarity upon those who would dissent.[35]

Conclusion: Where Do We Go from Here?

Is there anything we can do to stop this descent into autocracy? Certainly, it is unrealistic to think that there is a simple sure-fire “cure” for our current political and social malaise. There are no “quick fixes” for the present crisis, says Hunter, “foremost because the cultural resources that underwrite democratic renewal have been so depleted. Neither will the course of history naturally and organically make things right.”[36] One can hope that Trumpism will collapse under the weight of its own self-destructive nihilism and incompetence. But when or if that happens is anybody’s guess. In any case, the eventual demise of Trumpism must be followed by the hard work of achieving true civic and political renewal.[37] Meanwhile, Trump’s assault on democracy continues.

At the opposite extreme, we are tempted to feel powerless over our ability to make any kind of a difference in the public sphere and retreat into our own little private worlds. Surveys indicate that this describes about two-thirds of us which make up the “exhausted majority.”  Fed up with the venom which poisons our political culture, we are inclined to maintain our sanity by simply focusing on our jobs, families, and personal friendships. But to achieve sustainable healing in our land we must resist the tendency toward cynicism and fatalism. Francis Collins rightly states: “If you retreat from the public sphere and neglect to pursue wisdom and healing, or just do so as your own private project, you are disengaging from the world at exactly the moment when your engagement is most needed.”[38]

So, what are we to do? Providing a “roadmap” for the long road ahead would require an entire book. Here, I will simply offer some concluding reflections on the following five concepts: hope, truth, realism, confident pluralism, and cultural renewal.

Hope 

By hope I do not mean blind optimism or an ideology of progressivism which places an emphasis on human achievement. Within the Christian tradition, hope is associated with the Kingdom of God. Unfortunately, in my view, the Christian understanding of this biblical concept has been plagued by two misinterpretations. On the one hand, it has been over spiritualized to the point where there is a division or disjunction between heaven and earth, or God’s world and our world. This orientation is reflected in the African American spiritual, “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing’ through.” N.T. Wright states: “Generations have been schooled to read Jesus’ language about the kingdom as referring, not to God’s saving rule over creation, but to a heavenly kingdom into which God will receive those he has rescued from creation.”[39] In this interpretation, any sense in which the Kingdom of God is political or “this worldly” is entirely in the future when Christ returns to set up his kingdom. Obviously, if this is the case issues such as climate change or politics in general are of little concern to Christians.

The opposite error which is endemic among some advocates of “Christian America” is to equate the Kingdom of God with some type of theocracy or recovery of “Christendom.” We have noted that this is a form of religious totalitarianism which must be rejected. Theologically, this expectation of Christian social and political dominance is a form of realized eschatology which views the promises of the kingdom as fully or primarily realized in the present rather than looking to a future consummation. However, the New Testament never measures Christian faithfulness in terms of cultural dominance or even acceptance. In fact, as Andrew Walker rightly argues, “the pretense of an over realized or triumphalist hegemony is one of the most catastrophic effects undermining Christian mission.”[40]  This does not mean that Christianity may never become the majority religion within a society or that Christians should not seek to influence legislation. But the expectation of the full Christianization of a social order apart from the eschaton is a dangerous delusion.

Biblical hope describes the Kingdom of God in terms of the “now” and the “not yet.” Christians can look forward to the end of history when God will act decisively to establish the divine rule of justice and peace. But this future expectation has an impact, however limited, on the present. Martin Luther King understood this tension between future hope and present realities. “Shattered dreams! Blessed hopes! This is the life,” he declared. “On the one hand we must accept the finite disappointment, but in spite of this we must maintain the infinite hope. This is the only way that we will be able to live without the fatigue of bitterness and the drain of disappointment.” Despite the realities of injustice and he firmly believed that the “arch of history” moves inexorably toward justice.

Truth

Any pattern of lying is destructive for both the liar and others who are lied to. It is described in Proverbs as an “abomination to the Lord” (Prov 6:17; 12: 19, 22). But the ninth commandment which prohibits “false witness” against one’s neighbor (Exod 20:16) is not concerned with truth-telling in general. Rather, its specific focus is the issue of public testimony or witness before judges and honesty in social and commercial dealings. It is directed at serious and destructive perversions of truth that damage life in community.^[41] In public affairs such as disputes over property, business transactions, or personal injury public truth-telling was all-important in Jewish society as it is in ours. The prophets were continually focused on individual rights. Were the courts upholding or undermining justice? Were the wealthy taking advantage of the poor? Were judges taking bribes or guilty of favoritism? In such cases, resorting to falsehood would result in a collapse of community. In other words, the ninth commandment is against perversions of justice.^[42]

I would urge you to read Leviticus 19, which has been described as the great “holiness code” of the Old Testament. This entire chapter describes social relationships characterized by justice. The following verses are particularly important:

You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. You shall not swear falsely by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with all night until the morning. (Lev 19:11-13)

Notice that the entire context of the command to refrain from taking God’s name in vain (which has specifically to do with false oaths) involves social justice—not stealing; not dealing falsely with or lying to someone else; not oppressing, robbing, or withholding wages. The passage suggests that false oaths and lying could easily be part of a practice of shady deals, cheating, robbery, missing wages, and other social injustices. Edward Georgeson rightly states: “False oaths are always given with the intent to deceive and ultimately rob someone of something. Social injustices and inequities are frequently driven by deception clothed in honesty.” ^[43]

This connection between false oaths, dishonesty, and injustice is apparent from Jesus’ interactions with the scribes and Pharisees. Immediately after reprimanding the religious leaders for their practice of evasive swearing, Jesus further describes them as greedy, self-indulgent, lawless, and a “brood of vipers.” They are, he says, “white-washed tombs” who neglect the weightier matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness (Matt 23:23-33).

Jesus stood in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets. The prophet Jeremiah reminds us of times when “truth has perished; it is cut off from [people’s] lips (Jer 7:28). The prophet Isaiah similarly describes a situation in which “Justice is turned back . . . for truth has stumbled in the public squares” (Isa 59:14). He further describes a “rebellious people” who want to hear “flattering things” and “illusions.” Why? Because they put their trust in “oppression and deceit” (Isa 30:9, 12 HCSB). 

Language is the very foundation of community. When it is twisted to serve selfish and political ends and used for purposes of deception, manipulation, and control it eats away at the foundations of a just society. Truthfulness is the barometer of health not only for a society but also for a religious community and its leaders. As happened in Germany, it is when one’s opponents are regarded as evil and “enemies of the state” that people are most tempted to put their trust in authoritarian figures and totalitarian regimes who resort to duplicity, dishonesty, and suppression of truth to maintain their power. 

Realism

The movie Barbie (2023) was an international sensation, grossing about 1.4 billion dollars. What is surprising is the level of social and political dialogue that it inspired.^[44] In a Space Odyssey introduction which mimics Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey a group of little girls equipped only with baby dolls and tea party accessories are suddenly confronted with a giant towering monolith: a curvy Barbie, which inspires them to smash their boring baby dolls. In a voiceover, Helen Mirren tells of girls wanting to be more than just mothers. She announces that, thanks to the creation of Barbie and then her many career-focused iterations (Doctor Barbie, Scientist Barbie, President Barbie, and so on), “all problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved” in the real world. “At least,” she says, as the crowd snickers, “that’s what the Barbies think.” The Barbies live in an Eden-like world called Barbieland where every day is a sunny and perfect day, and everything—including Ken—is bold, bright, and larger than life.

Barbieland, in other words, is a make-believe world, a utopia void of reality. As this perfect world stops working for her, Barbie starts having irrepressible thoughts of death. What follows is a montage of perfect day replays, with every moment going wrong.  In the end, “Barbie, the movie, has no utopian vision of an equal world. No shining perfection to strive towards. The end, deliberately, leaves a sense of unease as the Kens are told ‘maybe one day, with hard work, Kens can have as much power as women do in the real world’ in response to their pleas for equality.” This biting sarcasm is not lost to the audience. What the film’s director, Greta Gerwig, seems to be saying is this: ideologies on both the left (radical feminism) and right (patriarchalism) are unworkable in the real world.

Hunter observes that liberal democracy rests on certain ideals such as justice, freedom, and equality. These ideals to which hope points are fundamental to any functioning democracy. “A vision of a transcendent future rooted in the capacious possibilities of human flourishing provides both the vantage point to critically assess the present and the moral energy to work toward, build upon, and sacrifice constructively on its behalf.” But idealism can easily mutate into utopianism if it is not tempered by an awareness of the dangers inherent within it. “It must be chastened by the tragic realization that—people being who they are—our ideals will never be fully realized in history.”[45] A central premise of a renewed ethical vision must therefore be a realism that recognizes that social conflict, coercion, and thus injustice, will always be an inescapable part of any political regime. Even so, there must be the pursuit of a relative justice that condemns   political oppression and violence, transcends warring parties, and pragmatically addresses real problems the nation and world face.

In his classic work Moral Man Immoral Society, the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr argues that while individuals have the capacity for morality, groups and societies tend toward self-interest (or what he terms “collective egoism”) and immorality. This means you can strongly criticize a system or party without attributing the worst motives to all its members.  Or as Hunter puts it, there can be nihilism without nihilists. This is a crucial distinction.  It provides some space for forgiveness, reconciliation, and abandoning the hypocrisy of self-righteous condemnation, for “evil in the foe is also in the self”[46] (Matt 7:1-5).  

Confident Pluralism

Our society is vastly more pluralistic than at any time in our nation’s history. This obviously presents a challenge for any democracy. In a free society, people have diverse ideas about the nature of reality, how to live authentic lives, and so on. How do we ensure fairness for everyone? As Wright and Bird state: “A society of Baptists, agnostics, Muslims, atheists, conservatives, progressives, LGBTQ+, immigrants, rich, poor, all living together cheek by jowl, will breed an assortment of perspectives in terms of how society should be governed, what laws should be passed, and how to manage our differences. When diversity meets democracy, it always creates friction and frustration.”[47] 

One response to diversity is to pursue greater political and social homogeneity by privileging one social or religious group and ideology and suppressing all dissent. We have seen that this is what characterizes both religious authoritarianism and civic totalism. Currently, President Trump wants to impose uniformity by issuing executive orders rolling back DEI initiatives, bullying universities, and pursuing a policy of mass deportation. Previous administrations on the left have pursued similar—though perhaps less draconian—policies.[48] 

While it is not possible to address this complex issue of achieving unity within diversity in detail, I want to summarize an alternative approach that has been proposed by the legal philosopher, John Inazu. In his book, Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving Through Deep Difference he states:

Confident Pluralism offers a political solution to the practical problem of our deep differences. Instead of the elusive goal of E pluribus unum, it suggests a more modest possibility—that we can live together in our “many-ness.” That vision does not entail Pollyannaish illusions that we will solve all of our differences and live happily ever after. Few people think that all of our differences will go away—we are stuck with the good, the bad, and the ugly of pluralism. But Confident Pluralism remains possible in both law and society.

Confident Pluralism takes both confidence and pluralism seriously. Confidence without pluralism misses the reality of politics. It suppresses difference, sometimes violently. Pluralism without confidence misses the reality of people. It ignores or trivializes our stark differences for the sake of feigned agreement and false unity. Confident Pluralism allows genuine difference to coexist without suppressing or minimizing our firmly held convictions. We can embrace pluralism precisely because we are confident in our own beliefs, and in the groups and institutions that sustain them.[49] (emphasis mine)

Confident pluralism means people can hold different beliefs, lifestyles, and religions as they see fit without fear of reprisal, provided they follow the rule of law. LGBTQI+ people have a right to be themselves; Muslims can be Muslims; and Christians can be Christians. We can learn to live with each other despite our deep differences. But this “requires a tolerance for dissent, a skepticism of government orthodoxy, and a willingness to endure strange and even offensive ways of life.”[50] Thus, there is need for constitutional commitments that “protect us from an overreaching state that seeks to control and suppress difference and dissent.”[51] 

Inazu maintains that despite our deep differences we do have a “modest unity” in our constitutional tradition that recognizes the “wisdom of limiting state power, encouraging persuasion over coercion, and supporting a robust civil society.”[52] Our modest unity includes two foundational principles—inclusion and right to dissent. Neither of these premises is absolute. Inclusion, for example, does not give toddlers the right to vote and dissent does not extend to child molesters or cannibals. But our constitutional tradition does guarantee individual rights as well as religious liberty. We must work to maintain these rights, which at times have been diminished or weakened by various Supreme Court rulings. The precise contours of inclusion and dissent will always be contested as is evident in recent cases involving conflicts between LGBTQI+ rights and religious freedom. Negotiating and renegotiating these premises strains our modest unity and will always require tradeoffs and compromises. But argues Inazu, “Recognizing a tragic dimension to our efforts at peaceful coexistence does not mean that we are chasing windmills. The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once observed that ‘democracy is a method of finding proximate solutions to insoluble problems.’”[53]

In our civic aspirations, confident pluralism calls for adherence to the principles of tolerance, humility, and patience.[54] Tolerance recognizes that people are for the most part free to pursue their own beliefs and practices, even those we might find morally objectionable. In other words, people have the right to be wrong.  Inazu emphasizes that this willingness to respect the rights of those whose lifestyle we might strongly disapprove of does not require embracing all beliefs or viewpoints as good or right. “The tolerance of confident pluralism does not impose the fiction that all ideas are equally valid or morally harmless.”[55] It does require respecting people and aiming at fair discussion. The principle of humility recognizes not only that others will find our beliefs and practices objectionable but also that we can’t always “prove” why we are right, and they are wrong. Some of our deepest and most important beliefs stem from presupposition that others do not share. Again, humility should not be mistaken for moral relativism. But it does involve the recognition that our human faculties of reason and discernment are inherently imperfect and limited. Finally, patience involves the effort to listen, understand, and even empathize. It recognizes the humanity of those with whom we disagree.

The theologian Miroslav Volf has developed an argument for pluralism which is theologically based and, like confident pluralism, calls for a polity in which the state relates to all communities impartially.[56] Basically, the bare-bones sketch of the argument goes like this:

• Because there is one God, all people relate to that one God on equal terms.

The central command of that one God is to love neighbors—to treat others as we would like them to treat us, as expressed in the Golden Rule.

• We cannot claim any rights for ourselves and our group that we are not willing to give to others.

• Whether as a stance of the heart or as outward practice, religion cannot be coerced.

Once these core theological and moral propositions are accepted, argues Volf, there are good reasons from a Christian standpoint for accepting pluralism as a political project.

Cultural Renewal

Hunter concludes his book Democracy and Solidarity with the observation that the renewal of American democracy will be impossible if citizens and leaders alike give up on the process of “working through” their differences and attending fears. On this score, he is not overly optimistic. “The manner in which contemporary politics is conducted is noteworthy for its lack of seriousness,” he writes. “What has been normalized as democratic politics today is, at best, a parody of the real thing.”[57] Witness, for example, the “race to the bottom” with gerrymandering or redistricting as both Democrats and Republicans threaten to redraw congressional maps in their favor prior to the 2026 mid-term election. Gerrymandering makes it easier for politicians and political parties to consolidate power and win elections at the expense of voters and our democracy. Yet, it has become a regular feature of our politics.

In sum, “what we need is a paradigm shift within liberal democracy rooted in an ethical vision for the re-formation of public life.” Above all, we must recognize “that the most serious culture war we face at present is not against the “other side,” but against the nihilism that insinuates itself in the symbolic, institutional, and practical patterns of the late modern world, not least it's politics.” Without this capacity to envision a better world that transcends a politics of raw power, we become something like Nietzsche’s “last men.”[58]

This much is clear: the hybrid-Enlightenment which served as the basis for political solidarity in America for over two hundred years is no longer viable. So, it appears that we are faced with either of two choices. On the other hand, we can continue down the road of political nihilism, which could very possibly result in a civil war of one form or another. Over thirty years ago, Hunter warned: “when cultural impulses this momentous vie against each other to dominate public life, tension, conflict, and perhaps even violence are inevitable. Conflict and violence? This observation is not made lightly, if only because culture wars always precede shooting wars.”[59] Studies indicate that political violence and threats of violence are rising. A News/Marist poll released in July of this year found that 76 percent of Americans believe that divisiveness poses a serious threat to our democracy and 73 percent view political violence to be a major problem in the U.Sy.[60]

The other option is a re-formation of public life based on what Hunter calls a “reconstituted humanism.”[61] Again, since our society is highly pluralistic, the reformation of American solidarity would draw upon the resources of multiple traditions—classical, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, secular, Native American, Hindu, Buddhist, etc. “Out of this would emerge an unqualified affirmation of the supreme and equal dignity and value of all human beings.”[62]  The result will be that you can have a situation like that of the UK where you have a Christian king, a Hindu prime minister, a Buddhist home secretary, a Muslim first minister of Scotland, and an atheist opposition leader.[63] 

This raises two questions. First, if we have a politics of multiple communities that bring their religious perspectives to the common table, won’t the violent clashes—the religious wars—return? Second, will both secular and religious communities be willing to embrace such a political project?

In response to the first question, it should be noted that there are a broader set of principles which all (or most) religions share. These are the human values of truth and veracity, love, beauty, goodness, freedom, faith, family, benevolence, justice, mercy, etc. These values make up what C.S. Lewis calls the Tao—a “common human law of action which can overarch rulers and ruled alike.”[64] Francis Collins suggests that “recognizing and embracing our share sense of values and virtues can provide us with an opportunity to find common ground with almost everyone who is part of the human family.”[65] This does not mean that there is some “common core” or that all religions are fundamentally the same. There are indeed teachings and practices of religion which are not only different but contradictory and can be a source of conflict. So, we must agree to work through these differences and place an emphasis on those internal resources which foster a “culture of peace.” In other words, the relations between religions “should not be defined simply by religious and cultural ‘differences,’ but by ‘overlaps’ and ‘common principles’ as well.”[66] To illustrate the commonalities, President Obama invoked a rule which he described as common to all religions—“that we do unto others as we would have them do to us.” This moral principle, he stated, “transcends nations and peoples”: it is “a belief that isn’t new, that isn’t black, or white or brown; that isn’t Christian, or Muslim, or Jew.”[67]

Concerning the second question, it needs to be acknowledged that we live in a post-Christian world. We have noted that there are “militant secularists” who want to limit religious freedom as much as possible and in some cases eliminate the influence of religion (particularly Christianity) in public discourse. In response, Christians must advocate strongly for the free exercise of religion and the equal treatment of all religions. As John Inazu and Timothy Keller state in their book Uncommon Ground: “If our culture cannot form people who speak with both conviction and empathy across deep differences then it becomes even more important for the church to use its theological and spiritual resources to produce such people.”[68] After all, the center of the Christian faith is that God loves the entire sinful world (Jn 3:16) and that Christ died for the ungodly (Rom 5:6), Volf points out that the call for Christ followers to “love your enemy”—which combines a moral clarity that does not shy from calling evil by its proper name and a deep compassion for evildoers that is willing to sacrifice one’s own life on their behalf—is one of extraordinary features of early Christianity. It should also be a central feature of contemporary Christianity.[69] 

Sadly, many Christian leaders on the religious right have made a Faustian bargain with Donald Trump in which they pledge their support of the President in exchange for his promise of protection and a return to some golden age in the past of a “Christian America.” Historically, the pursuit of political power as a means of achieving some sort of religious theocracy or Christian social hegemony has had disastrous consequences.  The French political theorist Alex de Tocqueville was the most creative and astute observers of American life in the nineteenth century. He was especially fascinated, historically and sociologically, with the influence of religion in American life—particularly the secular consequences of religious ideologies and the role of religion in establishing and maintaining a liberal democratic order. Tocqueville recognized the importance of religion for maintaining a vibrant democratic republic. But he urged Americans not to ignore the lessons of Europe. “In Europe,” he states, “Christianity has been intimately united to the powers of the earth. These powers are now in decay. . . . The living body of religion has been bound down to a dead corpse of superannuated polity.”[70] 

Tocqueville’s observations remain relevant today. History documents that an overly close relationship between government or a political party and the church can have detrimental effects on both society and religious institutions. A politicized Christianity often becomes a Christianity that is hypocritical, domesticated, and shallow. Moreover, as Andrew Walker warns, “the adoption of a policy that serves a Christian interest today can just as easily be turned against Christianity tomorrow.  It is better, prudentially speaking, to be a provisional loser today while appealing to constitutional democracy than be an indefinite political prisoner tomorrow.”[71] The lesson of Hitler’s Germany, Putin’s Russia, and other dictatorships is that the church can unwittingly become simply a mouthpiece for a totalitarian regime and its practices.

Several different models or strategies have been proposed for how the church ought to relate to the public square within a post-Christian context. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. In my view, the church needs a political discipleship based on Jesus’ kingdom ethic, though its full scope is beyond the purpose of this post. N T Wright states in one his books, God in Public that when God wants to change the world he works through “beatitude people”—followers of Jesus who are meek; mourn over sin and evil in the world (and themselves); are merciful toward others; have a deep hunger and thirst for justice; are peacemakers; and are incorruptibly pure in heart.[72] He creates “kingdom communities” whose cultural dynamic is characterized not by the love of power but by the power of love. What we need, and what our democracy needs, is not civic totalism or religious theocracy, but a church culture shaped by God’s love and Christian wisdom operating as public virtue.[73] 

[1] Hunter, Democracy and Solidarity, 12-13.

[2] Collins, The Road to Wisdom., 77-78.

[3] Sykes, How the Right Lost Its Mind, 87.                           ,

[4] Ibid.

[5] Haidt, The Righteous Mind, 88-89.

[6] Ibid., 91.

[7] Ibid., 312.

[8] Sykes, How the Right Lost Its Mind, 97-98.

[9] Wilber, Trump and a Post-Truth World, 25-27.

[10] Kristian, Untrustworthy, 13

[11] Ibid., 14.

[12] Ibid., 15.

[13] Collins, The Road to Wisdom, 311-12.

[14] Ibid., 316-17.

[15] Ibid., 312.

[16] Adair, Beyond the Big Lie, 51.

[17] Leonnig and Rucker, I Alone Can Fix It, 516-17.

[18] One of Trump’s more egregious misrepresentations in his second term is his repeated claim that the tariffs he has imposed on foreign governments are essentially a tax on imported goods are paid by the foreign countries exporting those goods into the US.  In fact, according to economists and the Tax Foundation, when goods enter the US, it is the importing American businesses that pay the tariff to US Customs and Border Protection. These increased costs are generally passed on to the American consumer. See Duirante, “Who Pays Tariffs? Americans Will Bear the Costs of the Next Trade War.”

[19] Hunter, Democracy and Solidarity, 323-24.

[20] Collins, The Road to Wisdom, 330-33.

[21] McQuade, Attack from Within, 72.

[22] Adair, Beyond the Big Lie, 124-28..

[23] Ibid., 123, 191.

[24] Tapper and Thompson, Original Sin.

[25] Kakutani, The Death of Truth, 55.

[26] Long, Truth-Telling in a Post-Truth World, 59-60

[27] Hunter, Democracy and Solidarity, 33.

[28] Ibid., 11.

[29] Ibid., 11, 35.

[30] Ibid., 18.

[31] Hunter, To Change the World, 107.

[32] Ibid., 108.

[33] Hunter, “Culture Wars: The Endgame.”

[34] Ibid.

[35] Hunter, Democracy and Solidarity, 343, 360.

[36] Ibid., 371.

[37] Brooks, “I Should Have Seen This Coming.”

[38] Collins, The Road to Wisdom, 343.

[39] Wright, God In Public, 159

[40] Walker, Liberty for All, 187.

[41] Harrelson, The Ten Commandments and Human Rights, 143.

[42] Ibid., 143-46. 

[43] Georgeson, Social Justice Jesus, 177.

[44] The following summary is based on a review of the movie entitled, “Barbie: A Beautiful Mess of Contrdictions.”

[45] Hunter, Democracy and Solidarity, 377.

[46] Ibid, 379.

[47] Wright and Bird, Jesus and the Powers, 170.

[48] For example, in 2016 the DNC adopted the following party platform regarding religious freedom: “We support a progressive vision of religious freedom that respects pluralism and rejects the misuse of religion to discriminate.” The implication is that the Democratic Party supports religious freedom, but only within the confines of progressive ideology. “To my ears,” says Bird, “this sounded like a minimalist view of religious freedom, defined narrowly and negatively as a right to discriminate and set over and against values of tolerance and inclusion.”  The 2020 DNC party platform modified its language somewhat, but still tethered religion to discrimination. While acknowledging that religious freedom is a fundamental human right it added: “We will never use protection of that right as a cover for discrimination.” See Bird, Religious Freedom in a Secular Age, xxv-xxvi.

[49] Inazu, Confident Pluralism, 6-7.

[50] Ibid., 125.

[51] Ibid.

[52] Ibid., 15.

[53] Ibid., 33.

[54] Ibid., 87-90.

[55] Ibid., 88.

[56] Volf, Public Faith, 124-25.

[57] Hunter, Democracy and Solidarity, 382.

[58] Ibid., 382-83.

[59] Hunter, Before the Shooting Begins, 4.

[60] Burga, “Most Americans Say Democracy Is Threatened as Political Violence Rises.”

[61] Hunter, Democracy and Solidarity, 379.

[62] Ibid.,380.

[63] Wright and Bird, Jesus and the Powers, 173.

[64] Lewis, The Abolition of Man, 84.

[65] Collins, The Road to Wisdom, 347.

[66] Volf, A Public Faith, 140.

[67] Ibid.

[68] Inazu and Keller, Uncommon Ground, 16.

[69] V0lf, A Public Faith, 132.

[70] See Henry, Has Democracy Had Its Day?, 21.

[71] Walker, Liberty for All, 221.

[72] Wright, God In Public, 160-61.

[73] Bird, Religious Freedom in a Secular Age, 131.