“Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,” says Yahweh Sabaoth. (Zechariah 4: 6)

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The Culture Divide in America

This editorial will begin with a bit of personal information.  It’s not a testimonial; it’s not confession; and it’s not self-aggrandizement.  I want you to understand a few things about me so that my points will have more meaning.

I was born in 1950, and I went to undergraduate school at the University of Georgia from 1968 to 1972.  I am a baby-boomer.  While I was in college, the Vietnam War was escalating.  Like every other able-bodied American male in college at that time, I had reasons to believe that there was a high probability that I would be heading to Vietnam after graduation.

People my age will recall that the U.S. switched from the draft to the lottery during my college years.  The lottery worked like this: each day of the year was drawn randomly and given a number; the first day drawn was number 1, the second day drawn was number 2, and so on.

Each eligible male’s lottery number was determined by the number given to his birthday. The lower the number, the more likely you would be called to the military.  My number was 86.  That was too low.  The best estimates given at the time of the lottery suggested that my going to Vietnam after graduation was a virtual certainty.

While I was a student at UGA, I got to know several soldiers who had returned from Vietnam and enrolled in college.  Many of them had been wounded, some seriously, and all of them had stories to tell.  None of the ones that I knew had positive things to say about the conduct of the war.  They saw it as a meaningless waste of human life and tax dollars.

The Vietnam War made no sense to me.  The Cold War was in full swing.  I could understand the importance of arresting the spread of communism, but we were not trying to win the war.  We were simply fighting to prevent a takeover of South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese.

In 1979 when I joined the faculty at the University of Virginia, one of my colleagues was a Vietnam veteran.  He was in Army intelligence, and he confirmed everything that the vets I met at UGA had told me.

That’s an important reason why a generation of men in the United States who are my age don’t trust our government.  We had been lied to by our political leaders and our lives had been put at risk for dubious reasons.  You can’t blame us for not trusting government then, and most of us still don’t trust our government.

As a generation, we did some foolish things.  For example, we were responsible for pushing for the legalization of abortion.  We did many other idiotic things.  The damage that my generation did to our country is incalculable.  Our nation is suffering today because of people my age.

As parents, we raised the next generation of Americans.  About half of us regained our senses and raised our children to be hard-working, morally upright people.  The other half never recovered.  They raised their children to believe that anything goes.

When I say “anything goes”, I mean it literally.

That’s the world we live in today.  About half of us believe that our nation is heading in the wrong direction because of our immorality and our entitlement way of thinking.  The other half still believes that they can do anything they want with impunity.

It’s no wonder that Congress hasn’t been able to accomplish anything.  The divisions in our country are too deep and too wide.  There is very little common ground, so compromise is difficult if not impossible.

Eventually, one side will win and the other side will lose.  That helps to explain the intensity of the battles we see taking place every day on the streets, in our schools, and in every other institution in our society.  Both sides see what’s at stake, and they are willing to fight for what they believe in.

Below is a picture of my wife Katie and me.  It was taken in 1972 while we were in college. A few months later, we were married.  If you think I look like a messed up college kid in that picture, you are right.  I was messed up.  Katie was not.

Below is another picture of Katie and me.  It was taken in the White House in October 1980 shortly before the 1980 presidential election.  Katie and I were there for a meeting with President Carter.   I was a Democrat at that time.

Shortly after President Reagan defeated President Carter, Virginia Governor Chuck Robb, a Democrat, appointed me Policy Advisor for Regulatory Reform.  I spent the next four years teaching at the University of Virginia and overseeing regulatory activities in Virginia. Because of my job in the Governor’s Office, I worked closely with the Reagan White House on regulatory matters since Reagan had made regulatory reform a high priority.

Following Carter’s humiliating defeat, Democrats tried to behave responsibly.  We didn’t have a choice.  The message from the election was loud and clear.  The nation demanded that we do the right thing, so we did.

The message from Hillary Clinton’s humiliating defeat by President Trump was loud and clear, too.  This time, though, Democrats decided to ignore the message and behave like spoiled brats.

I’ve said this before, but I’ll repeat it until it sinks in: Democrats need to be taken to the woodshed several times for serious spankings.  One election defeat is not enough.

When I talk about Democrats, I’m not just flapping my gums.  I know them because I used to be one of them.

I know Republicans, too, because I worked closely with them.  At one point, Republicans in Albemarle County Virginia recruited me to run for office as a Republican.  I didn’t accept their offer, but my political leanings had changed dramatically. I was no longer a Democrat, and they knew it.

That’s it for the background material.  I covered a lot of territory in very few words.  This is the main point that I want to make: I understand what’s taking place in Washington.  It’s a battle for the heart and soul of America.  One side will win and the other side will lose.  The fighting is intense, and it will get worse before it gets better.

That brings me to an article in the Washington Post titled “What an actual ‘deep state’ looks like” by Ishaan Tharoor.  This is the way he begins:

Key figures in the White House see themselves locked in a battle with the “deep state” — a term they’re using, as my colleagues explained, to describe “a group of Obama-aligned critics, federal bureaucrats and intelligence figures” as well as the media. Stephen K. Bannon, the White House chief strategist who once ran far-right publication Breitbart, has reportedly spoken “at length” with President Trump about his view that the “deep state” is undermining Trump’s presidency.

The consequences of such paranoia can be seen in Trump’s Twitter outburst over the weekend. He accused his predecessor of tapping his phones  (without offering any evidence) and framed his administration as the victim of “witch hunts” and “McCarthyism.” On Monday, reports emerged that FBI Director James B. Comey was “incredulous” over Trump’s allegations.

Nevertheless, there has been a great deal of chatter — and a good number of articles —  pondering the “deep state” and its reach in the United States. As this newsletter discussed last month, it’s not just Bannon who’s throwing the term around. Some observers on the American left see the nexus of the national security apparatus, arms companies and corporate lobbies as the basis for a kind of all-pervasive shadow government  dominating political life in the country.

But the “deep state” in its more well-established contexts is something more concrete. The term is most closely associated with the turbulent politics of Turkey, a country whose democracy was for decades routinely interrupted by cabals in the military and civil bureaucracy. To this day, the suspected machinations of the deep state — secretive conspiracies hatched in the corridors of power and removed from the democratic process — shadow the nation’s politics.

The concept of the “deep state” also resonates strongly in countries where the military is vast and difficult to check. Think of Egypt, where an army-led putsch ousted an elected Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, in 2013; or Pakistan, where the military and its powerful intelligence arm remain the most influential actors within the state.

Steve Bannon isn’t paranoid and neither is President Trump.

Paranoia is “a mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically elaborated into an organized system.”

Trump and Bannon aren’t delusional.  They see a real problem that threatens our way of life.  Ishaan Tharoor and people like him are delusional.  They refuse to see the writing on the wall.  They are paranoid, too.  That’s why they are behaving like lunatics.

A “deep state” exists.  It’s embedded in every department of our government, in the media, and in every locality in our nation.  As a community organizer, Barack Obama used his 8 years in office to put it in place.  George W. Bush could have done the same thing while he was president, but he didn’t.  That made Obama’s job easier than it should have been, and it made President Trump’s job more difficult that it needed to be.

As I said, this is a battle for the heart and soul of America.  The Democrat Party has morphed into the Party of Perversity.  They will lie, cheat, steal, and do anything else they can think of to win.  From their perspective, we are engaged in a no holds barred war, because they know what will happen if they lose.  They are scared, and they have every right to be.

President Trump isn’t a real Republican, and real Republicans know it.  The difference between real Republicans and Democrats is slight.  Both major political parties will resist the changes that President Trump promised to make.  We’ve only just begun to see what that means.  As I said, it will get a lot worse before it gets better.

President Trump is the closest thing to a third party president that the United States has ever had.  He may be the closest thing to a third party president that we will ever have.  He isn’t beholden to any establishment group—not Republicans, not Democrats, not the media, and not big donors.

President Trump won the election because of support from ordinary Americans.  As president, he will succeed or fail because of support or lack of it from ordinary Americans.

That’s why we need to pray for the president, but we need to do more than pray.  We need to actively support him every way we can.  The cost of not supporting him will be very high.

Democrats will stop at nothing to derail the Trump presidency.  Many Republicans are waiting for the moment when they can stab him in the back.  President Trump needs the unflagging support of ordinary Americans to turn this country around.

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“If My people who are called by My Name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7: 14)

Change that Yahweh calls “good” begins in the hearts of believers—people who are recognizable because they are different.

We are different because we belong to Him and are called by His Name.  We are Yahweh’s people, His followers.

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His Name is Yahweh, the website, is a companion of the book His Name is Yahweh.

To download His Name is Yahweh: Revised Edition for free in PDF format, click on the title below:

• His Name is Yahweh: Revised Edition in PDF format

His Name is Yahweh has been downloaded and shared in congregations all over the world. Please take advantage of this opportunity to read and share essential information about Yahweh.

You have my permission to copy and print His Name is Yahweh: Revised Edition as many times as you want.  Please, don’t sell it.  Give it away.

To purchase His Name is Yahweh: Revised Edition in paperback or in eBook, click here.

To see videos that explain the importance of Yahweh’s Name, click here.

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“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17: 22-24)

See “His Name is Yahweh”.