Elizabeth Scalia is talking in apocalyptic terms... but not like you might be thinking:
Two weeks ago in this space, while still processing Election 2012, I wrote of my relief at the outcome,
not because I approved of it, but because it provided a bit of needed clarity. Faced with a challenger whose most daring political strategy was to cultivate vagueness in his relentless pursuit of all things beige, and an incumbent gleefully willing to launch a daily barrage of splattering, oozing color bombs heedless of what or whom they hit–or whether their tints were environmentally toxic or even true–the voters chose “sound and fury” over “nothing.”
Experiencing unprecedented economic, spiritual, and constitutional challenges, Americans re-elected both a president of questionable competence and many of the same artless, priorities-challenged politicians who have already proved themselves unequal to the task of creative, co-operative leadership. They thereby declared their comfort with troubling “new normals” in an age of transition.
For many, and for me, the election signaled the crossing of a Rubicon of sorts: twin-towering notions of Exceptionalism and Indispensability toppled for less conspicuous walk-ups of Isolationism and Nanny Statism; the running out of a clock, all illusions lain aside.
As might be imagined, the column generated an unusual amount of email and social media action, some of it jeering at the hilarity of my “apocalyptic pronouncements,” some grousing but in agreement, and some wondering, “so, what now? What do you mean by ‘playing strictly for God’ and how do we begin?”
We begin, I think, by giving simple thanks to God for the election—without conditions or sly assumptions that we know anything or are somehow colluding with Providence. That sounds counterintuitive, I know, but...
Read the rest, it's good but of course, regular readers know that with Ms. Scalia, it's always good.
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