Reflections on the Outcome of the 2020 Election

If you go on Facebook and other social media platforms, you may read or hear a number of people talking armed rebellion in response to the election of Joe Biden. While they may receive a sympathetic hearing from the extreme fringes of President Trump’s supporters, what the individuals who talking armed rebellion are doing is inciting their fellow Americans (if they are indeed Americans themselves) to commit treason under the laws of the United States, laws that were adopted by legislators from both parties in the US Congress and signed into law by US Presidents from both parties. 

There is a good chance, however, that they may not be Americans. They may be agent provocateurs of foreign powers hostile to the United States or dupes of these agent provocateurs seeking to take advantage of the disappointment of Trump supporters in the outcome of the presidential election and to further divide and weaken the United States. A divided nation cannot stand. A number of foreign powers have a long history of seeking to sow the seeds of civil unrest and violent upheaval in other countries to advance their own geopolitical aims. This was a strategy Adolph Hitler used to soften countries before their takeover by the Nazis. It was also a strategy used by the Soviets in the last century.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the term “agent provocateur” I have provided this excerpt from a Wikipedia article on the subject.

An agent provocateur (French for "inciting agent") is a person who commits or who acts to entice another person to commit an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act, so as to ruin the reputation or entice legal action against the target or a group they belong to. They may target any group, such as a peaceful protest or demonstration, a union, a political party or a company.

In jurisdictions in which conspiracy is a serious crime in itself, it can be sufficient for the agent provocateur to entrap the target into discussing and planning an illegal act. It is not necessary for the illegal act to be carried out or even prepared.

In a number of cases those who are talking the overthrow of a democratically-elected President are victims of their own overactive imaginations, who give credence to all kinds of wild conspiracy theories and who see evidence of insidious plots in coincidental occurrences. If they were psychiatric patients, they would be diagnosed as suffering from paranoid delusions.

While President Trump received a large share of the popular vote, his opponent received a larger share. While he won a large number of electoral college votes, his opponent won more, enough to put him on the path to the presidency. While President Trump has claimed all kinds of election irregularities, his team has produced little credible evidence of these irregularities. His legal challenges to the vote count in a number of states are a long shot. All indications point to him as having lost the election.

During the past four years we often heard the excuse, “Trump will be Trump.” During that time an increasing number of people became fed up with Trump being Trump even though they may have voted for him in 2016. They had hoped that Trump once he was elected would become more presidential. But to anyone who followed Trump’s career since the early days, these folks were deceiving themselves. The Trump mystique which may have initially attracted them began to wear thin. While Trump being Trump still appeals to his supporters who attend his rallies, Trump’s posturing and rhetoric has been alienating other voters.

If Trump had not cozied up to Vladimir Putin and dismissed the Russian efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, had come up with a workable alternative to Obamacare, had exhibited greater diplomacy and more empathy, acted decisively at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak instead of downplaying its seriousness, had not surrounded himself with sycophants who told him what he wanted to hear, and had reached out to Americans outside his base, he might have been re-elected. However, “Trump will be Trump.” His personality is not an asset. It is a liability. It may have served him in the rough and tumble world of the New York real estate business. But it did not serve him well as the President of the United States.

The post-election shenanigans that Trump and his aides are planning are reminiscent of the behavior of a spoiled child who, having lost a board game, accuses the other players of cheating, throws a tantrum, overturns the board and scatters the pieces and storms out of the room, taking the board with him so that the others cannot play the game. 

How are Christians to respond to the outcome of the 2020 election? First, they should not allow themselves to be drawn into the delusions and schemes of the extreme fringe of President Trump’s base or any other group. As disciples of Jesus Christ their first loyalty is to the One they call Savor and Lord, not to any politician on the right or the left. Their first loyalty is not to any political ideology or personality cult. It is to the teaching and example of Jesus Christ. 

They should pray for the gift of discernment, for the God-given ability to tell right from wrong, good from evil. God is the God of truth. Lying lips are an abomination to him. 

They should not forget that the evil one seeks to blind people to the truth, to tempt them into doing evil, and to entrap them in all kinds of evil schemes. They should also be mindful that those who have fallen under the influence of the evil one often do not recognize the evil one's influence in their lives. 

They also should be wary of those who claim special revelations from God. The Bible tells us that prophesy is subject to the will of the prophet. 

When a prophesy is made, we should not be too quick to believe it. Rather we should test the spirits. The Holy Spirit does not contradict himself. He does not say one thing in the Bible and another thing to a so-called prophet. 

The next four years will be a test of our faithfulness, our faithfulness to our Lord, our faithfulness to his teaching and example. Let us pray that we do not fail this test.