TAKE THE HIGH ROAD: DO NOT COMPROMISE TRUTH
Politics is a dirty business. Lies, dirty tricks, accusations, insinuations, conspiracy theories, name-calling, gerrymandering, disregard for ethics, conspicuous incivility and exaggerations of truth are examples of the dirt. All politicians do these things, but Christian Nationalists are gaining ground because their game plan also includes blatant restrictions of voting rights.

Regarding lies, Christian Nationalists believe that, if they tell the lies and report the conspiracy theories often enough, people will eventually believe them. Then lies and conspiracy theories morph into false truths that are hard to overcome. The strategy works.

When the clarity between truth and lies is blurred, America is weakened.  It is impossible to be intellectually and morally strong if you don’t know the difference between truth and lies. Truth is a sound foundation for a strong, united nation but lies weaken that foundation. America is divided along the fault lines of truth and lies.

Liberal politicians are generally more inclined to tell the truth but, seeing Christian Nationalist successes gained by telling lies, they unconsciously – or consciously —  compromise their truth-telling instincts and fight dirt with dirt.  Instead of taking the high ground of always speaking truth, they sacrifice their integrity. That lowers their playing field down to the lower level of Christian Nationalists.

Because they sacrifice their integrity, liberals share blame for division, and that is just fine with Christian Nationalists who know that liberals will never be able to compete with them on telling lies and use of rhetoric.  Voters’ choices between good and bad candidates become problematic in the face of incessant, rhetorical ramblings.

Christian Nationalists will not change their strategy because it works for them. The strength of their movement depends on voters who vote for Christian Nationalists because their discernment between good and evil is confused at best, and inclined toward evil at worst. This puts the onus on liberals to devise a new strategy that does not include compromises about truth.

We see evidence that Christian Nationalists are winning in daily media reports about their legislative successes in many states. We can expect that they will continue to gain political and legal ground unless their opponents (i.e., liberals, progressives, independents, atheists, unchurched, mainline Christians, swing voters, and everyone else) wake up and adopt a new, effective, coherent, uncompromising strategy for changing hearts and minds of Christian Nationalists.

Liberals will not wise-up to the merits of this strategy until they understand that they get dirtier from the mud they pick up and sling than they do from the mud that lands on them. Because they know politics is a dirty game that they must play to win, they willingly soil themselves when they sacrifice their integrity to run for office and accept campaign donations from special interest groups. Lacking confidence in the power of truth-telling, they feel that they can’t win unless they compete with Christian Nationalists by playing dirty. Every time they tell a lie, exaggerate a truth, or accept a donation from a special interest group, something inside them (i.e., their heart) gets dirty. They see the financial, emotional, and time costs, but they don’t see the internal, hidden costs: loss of integrity. They don’t see their hearts get hard.

Willing agreement to play this dirty game is a costly, long-term sacrifice to make for the sake of short-term political influence. Even election winners suffer long-term losses when they make those sacrifices. And since winners never stop running, they are forced to keep making those sacrifices while they are trying to do good for the country as leaders. They will constantly chip away at their integrity unless they understand the virtues of always telling the truth and the internal costs of playing dirty politics.

There is a better way of electing leaders so that their integrity is preserved while engaging in politics: never compromise on truth.