Daily Verse | Ezekiel 36:26
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Happy Wednesday, my friends! As Ross Perot would say, “I’m all ears.”

That tweet from David Burge is a nearly perfect summation of what happens when the Left infiltrates any number of respected institutions. Colleges, sports, jurisprudence, the military, religion, medicine and, of course, our government. Whatever the institution is, it goes woke and the traditional, historical import is overrun.

I say “nearly perfect” because there’s another factor at work in the process of killing an institution that isn’t listed but is a significant part of the degradation: coasting on the fumes of the institution’s previously earned reputation.

Maybe it’s an extension of number four. Once you’ve cloaked yourself in the “skin suit” of the target institution, it’s the institution’s reputation upon which you base your demand for respect, not your reputation. The killer rides the earned reputation for as long as he can while consolidating power.

For example, do you go to Harvard? That’s top shelf; only the best students get an Ivy League education.

Founded on basic Christian ethics, the United States of America prospered as a nation that recognized God as the ultimate Arbiter before whom even kings and nobles must bow. Those traditional ethics have been replaced by secular ethics and a cult of victimization which, when defined, is angry self-righteous envy. Lefties are coasting on the fumes of what’s left of the grand American experiment — and there’s not a gas station in sight. Once they’ve stomped out all vestiges of historic, traditional American exceptionalism, the super structure may stand for a moment, but it will inevitably come crashing down.

I’ve spent a lot of time criticizing Joseph Robinette Biden since he was installed back in January, and it got me thinking about the office of the President of the United States of America. I think the same thing has happened to that office.

Think of men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln. These were giants on the national stage. They were knowledgeable, diplomatic, wise and principled, true statesmen. When we think of the president of the United States, these were the men who imbued that office with its eminence and reputation.

Over the 245 years that we’ve been a nation, that office has commanded respect from the people, and the men who occupy it are often referred to in modern times as “the most powerful man in the world.” But in the last few decades, we’ve come to see that the office has been hollowed out by some of the men who have occupied it, the latest examples being Donald Trump and Joseph Biden. Neither of them are particularly dignified, as befitting of that office. Donald Trump was brash and egotistical, but very effective in driving U.S. policy. Joe Biden is a disgraceful and inept man who is merely occupying the office because he’s not Donald Trump.

If I had to put a time stamp on when the office began to lose its luster, it would be with Lyndon Johnson, followed closely by Richard Nixon and eroded further by William Jefferson Clinton and his wife.

I remember when then-president Bill Clinton visited the Leadership Summit at Willow Creek Community Church outside of Chicago. At one point before Clinton arrived, Pastor Bill Hybels requested that attendees at least respect the office of the president, even if they couldn’t respect the man.

I think most people here and around the world have viewed the office of the president of the United States as being in the mold of the first presidents we had. But that’s no longer the case; it’s an institution that has been killed, gutted and is now being worn as a skin suit by a man who isn’t worthy of it. Joe Biden—and others before him—were merely coasting on the previously earned reputation of the office and demanding respect that they didn’t command.

That creates a tension in us. We instinctively want to respect the office but its reputation is not what it was. I don’t know about you, but I hope that some of that distinction can be recovered some day, but it all depends on the character of the man or woman who holds the office.

Our recent crop of candidates doesn’t hold out much hope for that to happen.

This doesn’t bode well for us as a country. Where do you go to get a reputation back? And if the office is no longer respected, to whom does the country look for leadership?