When you’re in charge, people just want to know that you know. They don’t care if you really do know. So if you don’t know, just make it up and hope it all works out. That brand of hope sums up the relationship between our President and his supporters.

But this new hope isn’t for an optimistic future where true equality and justice is the aspiration. The hope espoused by Trump and his conservative followers, born in fear, is a hope that someone else, other than a functioning government, will step in and save the day, as more of our traditional safety net protections are tossed aside, otherwise known as “privatized.”

It appears they have appointed themselves the final arbiters of God’s provision. As a Christian I find it most alarming that denying basic human rights and decency has somehow become an extension of my zealous brothers and sisters’ Christian Faith. Cabinet members who have dedicated their entire careers to undermining the departments they now run, are overseeing the deconstruction and possible dissolution of these crucial institutions.

The Opti-MYSTIC

The “Evangelicals” who still believe that Trump is God’s chosen one, also argue that government is the problem and the less we have of it the better off we’ll be; the less effective it is, the better. Just let go and let God. Government shutdown? Who needs it anyway? Deregulation? Let the market sort itself out. Environmental protections? The Earth will take care of itself. Disenfranchised? You are now finally “free” to fix it. Racism? Elitism and racism used to be the norm. And normal is good. Therefore elitism and racism are good.

Talk about “hopey-changy.” This isn’t hope; it’s the deepest manifestation of cynicism the world has ever known.

I did it my way. It didn’t work. Now what?