Pastor’s Corner – November 10, 2024
Post-election Reflection
I watched the election results with Mom here in Seoul via CNN. It was becoming clear that Trump will be the next President. I was dumbfounded and shared sadness with many on social media and other outlets that expressed disappointment and even outraged how this was possible. When Trump spoke claiming the outcome, how God saved his life from an assassination attempt to save the nation, it did not sit well with me. However, unlike 2016 when emotions were high and we took to the street in protest with thousands gathered at LA City Hall, this time around, I was not as surprised but felt calm and had more clarity of the depth of our political situation and what that means for the rest of the world.
Viet Nguyen, an Asian American writer and professor expressed what I was feeling. “The United States was born from a fundamental contradiction that has never gone away. On the one hand, the beauty of democracy, opportunity, freedom, and equality. On the other hand, the brutality that made that beauty possible: colonization, genocide, enslavement, occupation, and war. So long as that contradiction is not resolved, it will return, and the country-and the world-will be haunted by the original sins that made this country and are still a part of this country. Too many Americans benefit from the contradiction. Some willingly embrace the brutality, others are willing to look away from it. That’s why the Democratic loss of its moral compass on Gaza and calling what Israel is doing a genocide was not simply a ‘single issue,’ but a symptom of the rot within a party that hopes that the beauty of multiculturalism and diversity will somehow be enough to overcome the brutality. The left has always said intersectionality is what matters, which includes the poor, the working-class. It’s the liberal to centrist part of the Democratic Party that has ignored the urgency of, at minimum, economic redistribution, and has helped to fetishize the wealthy. All of these projects have to go forward hand in hand: defend and elevate the economic interests of those who have less; represent the many different peoples of the country and their rights; oppose militarism, conquest, tyranny, and genocide.”
All this to say, we need to hold each other and remember that our struggle is not against people – our neighbors who may have voted otherwise – but understand that we have much work to do, to dismantle systems of white supremacy, patriarchy, christian nationalism etc. We are a faith community, peacemakers committed to social justice with labor of love and inclusion. More than ever, in the face of uncertainty, our public witness matters. May God’s grace and love that endures forever, be with you all. Amen.
From Seoul Korea,
Pastor Dae