I haven’t always been interested in, or paid much attention to, political matters in the U.S. I was born in the tumultuous sixties, grew up in the seventies, and came of age in the 80s during one of the most prosperous and peaceful decades the U.S. has seen while Reagan was president. It wasn’t until Clinton was caught lying about his “sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky” that I started having strong opinions about our government. I remember distinctly feeling like I needed a shower after Clinton left office. Then came the 9/11 attacks and I began paying even closer attention to what our government was doing.
Every four years I found myself hoping that a new “conservative” administration would be the answer to the unravelling that I saw starting to take place across the country. But, with a few exceptions, it was disappointment after disappointment until I realized: there isn’t any “conservative” administration that is going to rescue the American experiment. The Republican party isn’t really “conservative” but Democrat-lite. They’re like the Washington Generals basketball team, the perennial losers who played straight man to the Harlem Globetrotters who played “basketball” with the knowledge they could “do whatever they wanted — pull their pants down, pull off intricate passing displays, dunk it, hit shots worth 4 or 10 or 100 points, whatever” about 60 percent of the time.
All of that to say that over the years I came to realize that putting my hope in the government saving these United States was absolutely the wrong thing to do. Not that politics doesn’t have its place, but government isn’t the solution — government is the problem.
Looking to government as the only solution—as was perhaps appropriate in the pre-industrial era—ignores that today we in the U.S., at least, are two-plus generations into a functional meritocracy, which has largely erased structural impediments to individual advancement (if it has not eradicated all unearned privilege). Moreover, modern government has attained such a scope in the industrialized democracies that not only are substantially all legitimate public goods already being provided, but the government itself is now far more likely to be the cause of, or at least a significant contributor to, any given issue, rather than an instrument for its solution.
Yet the notion persists that government, not the other actors within civil society, should take the lead in addressing these problems. While this is an understandable reflex, it must be unlearned. In considering the challenges within contemporary American society, ask yourself: Are government policies the proximate or ultimate cause of the issue? And do many (if not most) calls to action in response present solutions involving a larger government role?
Yes, yes, and yes.
Consider student loans. The federal government took over the market for student debt and now proposes widespread debt forgiveness of non-economic loans, many of which cannot be serviced. Or consider the war in Ukraine: the U.S. and the West promote nonsensical energy policies as part of a mythical “energy transition,” thereby empowering rogue nations such as Russia that continue to exploit hydrocarbons and wield energy independence as a weapon, necessitating robust Western financial and military aid in defense of Ukraine. Inflation? Having caused prices to explode through an imprudent monetary and fiscal blowout, Washington passes an inaptly named Inflation Reduction Act, which has little to do with reducing inflation but contains unproductive spending. These are just three examples of government’s creating or contributing to a problem and then posing solutions that make it even worse.
Most Americans have the same opinion.
Almost halfway into 2023, Americans continue to identify the government itself as the biggest problem the United States is facing, the latest results of a Gallup survey suggest.
In survey results released Tuesday, the Gallup polling organization found that 18 percent of respondents named “government” as the nation’s most important problem. The “economy in general” category came in second at 14 percent, followed by “high cost of living or inflation” (9 percent), “immigration” (8 percent), “guns or gun control” (7 percent), and “crime or violence” (6 percent).
Gallup notes in its summary that “government” is a category encompassing a range of response options, such as the dissatisfaction with the president himself, Congress, and party politics and gridlock.
So what’s the solution? The solution is to recognize that God is always in charge, not government. “This is especially true in a democratic society, where it is the duty of responsible citizens to examine public servants with a discerning and critical eye. Nevertheless, Christians are responsible to uphold biblical righteousness in a hostile culture while also expressing respect for its leadership.”
This is underscored in 1 Peter 2:13-17.
Submit to every human authority because of the Lord, whether to the Emperor as the supreme authority or to governors as those sent out by him to punish those who do what is evil and to praise those who do what is good. For it is God’s will that you silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good. As God’s slaves, live as free people, but don’t use your freedom as a way to conceal evil. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the Emperor.
The truth is that our country may never recover its former self. But faith in Jesus doesn’t depend on the condition of the nation, but the condition of the heart. Put your trust in God for the future, no matter what happens to the country.
