How to live above the partisan noise of our day

Some news is tragic no matter your politics, such as Friday’s announcement that Gene Hackman died from heart disease and Alzheimer’s a week after his wife died of a respiratory illness linked to rodents. But some news make headlines precisely because of politics, such as the comments of MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace and Rachel Maddow following President Trump’s speech to Congress last week. Both focused on DJ Daniel, a thirteen-year-old brain cancer survivor who has always dreamed of being a police officer. During the speech, the president said to him, “I am asking our new Secret Service director, Sean Curran, to officially make you an agent of the United States Secret Service.”

After the speech, Wallace said, “I hope he has a long life as a law enforcement officer,” but added that she hopes he “never has to defend the United States Capitol against Donald Trump’s supporters.” Maddow called Daniel’s inclusion in Mr. Trump’s speech “disgusting,” accusing the president of making a “spectacle” of the boy’s illness while claiming that DOGE cuts have “cut off funding for ongoing research into pediatric cancer.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called their responses “sad and frankly pathetic.” And DJ’s father said Maddow “needs to shut her mouth if she has nothing nice to say.” He added, “This lady didn’t even serve time in the military. I was on the USS Kitty Hawk. She does not need to put her bad energy on us.”

Why we need “two strong and healthy parties”

The first time I traveled in Europe, I was surprised to discover the monolithic nature of the various cultures I experienced. Most of these countries have a history dating back millennia. Over the centuries, many have self-selected into particular demographics, languages, and societies.

When people came from these various countries to the New World, however, they created a nation of colonies that became states, many with widely different cultures. The Founders’ solution was to make a governmental system that recognized and gave agency to these various constituents.

As Yuval Levin shows in his brilliant book, American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again, the checks and balances built into our governance are a feature, not a bug. Our leaders are elected by districts and regions with very specific social features. Then they work together to represent these constituencies while serving the common good. Our president is the only leader elected by the entire nation; everyone else represents America’s broad diversity in hopes of fulfilling our national motto, E Pluribus Unum, “out of many, one.”

As a result, partisan agendas and political parties that reflect and advance them are a necessary part of our democracy. As Peggy Noonan writes in her latest Wall Street Journal column, “two strong and healthy parties vying for popular support is good for the country.”

Who was “the most trusted man in America”?

While our governance was intended to represent the spectrum of subjective partisan politics, the media is a different story. The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of the press. But no one elects the press, nor are they paid a government salary for their service. As a result, media is a business that must make money, typically through subscribers and advertisers.

For much of my lifetime, they did so by being objective. People watched Walter Cronkite each evening because he was widely considered “the most trusted man in America.” No one knew what partisan views he espoused personally. Media platforms made money by appealing to the broadest possible audiences, primarily through their objectivity. Newspapers had opinion sections, of course, and were known in these sections for partisan alignments, but the rest of the paper was thought to be objective reporting.

Then came cable news, disrupting the “big three” networks by offering a plethora of competitors, and social media, disrupting the “legacy” news organizations in the same way. Competition for “eyeballs and clicks” grew fierce. As analytical data enabled platforms to target specific demographics, media began focusing on particular partisan audiences. Companies began advertising on platforms targeting the audiences they felt were most likely to buy or consume their products.

As a result, Nicolle Wallace and Rachel Maddow know precisely the political views of their constituents and spoke to them after the president’s address. Those who disagree with these views will obviously disagree with their comments. Those who agree with these views will applaud their responses.

The Founders relied on a commitment to objective truth and consensual biblical morality to unify the disparate factions of the nation. Now that our “post-truth,” post-Christian culture has abandoned both, it is hard to see a path forward for our secularized society short of a unifying national crisis.

The good news is that there is a way to live above partisan noise and conflict available to any who will choose it.

“It’s not about success and failure”

The Westminster Shorter Catechism states, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”

The former leads to the latter.

Because we are “created for [his] glory” (Isaiah 43:7), we are to “glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20) and in all we do: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

This is not because God is a divine egotist. Rather, when we seek to honor and revere God, we humble ourselves as creatures before our Creator. We serve a cause greater than our fallen “will to power” and partisan agendas. And the closer we get to him, the closer we draw to each other.

In this way, when our “chief end is to glorify God,” we “enjoy him forever”—in this world and the next.

Pastor and author Mark Batterson wrote:

“It’s not about success and failure. It’s not about good days and bad days. It’s not about wealth or poverty. It’s not about health or sickness. It’s not even about life or death. It’s about glorifying God in whatever circumstance you find yourself in.”

Do you agree?

Quote for the day:

“We must learn that the glory of God is to be preferred before all other things.” —Ezekiel Hopkins (1633–1690)

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Denison Forum