November 5th, 2024, started like a normal Tuesday, teaching classes to 18-22 year-olds. I then voted and returned to the office for the rest of the day. That evening, my wife and I joined a watch party. As I was on my way to the watch party, I was listening to the news and heard that the day had begun going sideways.
I’d remained, as a friend said, “nauseously optimistic.” Our very conservative Southern town did not have the fervor for Trump it had in 2020, and there seemed to be a lot of momentum around preserving democracy.
I was wrong.
In 2016, I wrote “Binding my Broken Heart” on the day after the election. In 2020, I wrote “I am Angry, Hurt, and Exhausted” on the day after that election. This year, I couldn’t write.
After midnight on the night of the election, I made one simple post on social media, “1933”.
Dramatic, I know. Election night was raw. But I still stand by that post.
After the Election
Frustration at work turned into a blessing that week. My university reworked the tenure process this year. A very short period was allotted for me—along with others up for tenure—to write and assemble a tenure portfolio, which, of course, was due at the end of election week. This forced me to put the election out of my mind as much as possible to focus on this crucial deadline. Jemar Tisby’s article about needing time to rest and mourn also encouraged me to step away.
I changed my Facebook profile picture to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and my banner to the scene from The Passion of Christ when the Jewish people elected to save Barabas rather than Jesus. But other than finding solace from like-minded friends on social media, I didn’t say much. I didn’t have the words.
My wife took it even harder.
My point is not that now—almost six weeks later— I am better, or that all is good, or that I realized God is in control.
I am broken.
Yes, God is in control. He has ultimately been in control during every dark time in history. He gave us free will. Sometimes, we use it to spit on Him.
Moving Forward
The day after the election, I came up with the “concept of a plan” for what I think will be a powerful new painting series. It is now thoroughly planned out, and I will begin working on it soon. If only a fraction of as much progress had been made on healthcare in the last nine years…
I am Generation X. We have never let trauma crush us. I have grown to the point where I can recognize trauma. I now see how the violent, self-righteous hypocrisy prevalent in the Church and the nation mirrors the attitudes behind the most significant harms carried out against me in my life and how the realization of its pervasiveness triggers emotional and physical responses.
But I will be okay. I was able to put one foot in front of the other when those harms were done to me personally and professionally. I can put one foot in front of another today, tomorrow, and for the next four years.
But I mourn what has become of our nation. My parents taught me a very different vision of the United States.
The California Court of Appeals building in Santa Ana was recently named after my father, Cruz Reynoso. The court allowed me to speak at the naming ceremony. I’ve been thinking about that short speech over the last few weeks.
My father became a lawyer to help, in his words, “poor people and those in trouble.” He believed in equal access to justice for all—justice that is the same in substance and availability regardless of wealth, status, race, or religion.
Dad never expected any reward for these efforts. He was simply following his beliefs. He would, however, be grateful and humbled by today’s honor. I, too, am pleased to see Dad remembered in this way.
When Justice O’Leary and I were corresponding about this event, she referred to my dad as an “Icon.” It reminded me of a time when Dad and I were visiting a real estate lawyer because of some legal concerns. When Dad was not in earshot, the lawyer asked me, “What was it like to have him as a father?” It wasn’t the first time I had been asked this sort of question. But it always catches me off-guard.
To me, he was just Dad. On a workday at the ranch, I remember him resting and falling asleep in a wheelbarrow under the shade of a willow tree. I remember Mom’s patience when Dad would come home late from work. I remember Dad’s frustration when I walked four miles home from school in the second grade. I remember his passion when we talked about politics and justice around the dinner table. I remember him jumping on the trampoline with my children. I remember his generosity, especially of his time, to those who needed it.
Dad was just Dad, but he was also an icon. He, an American citizen, was deported as an infant during the Mexican Repatriation Movement yet still chose to do the hard work that left a lasting imprint on the state and country that sent him away.
Dad understood that part of his significance was a happenstance of history. Had he been born a few years earlier, California may not have been ready. Had he been born later, someone else may have already accomplished what he would. This kept him humble.
But he still did the work. He took the hard steps. What he accomplished professionally is inseparable from who he was as a person and father. His Justice Bone, as he called it, compelled him to always work for the common good and defend those without power. Dad taught me that might does not make right. In fact, sometimes might forgets about what is right or wrong.
Dad’s last op-ed, written for the Washington Post in June 2016, when he was 85, spoke against some “bitter vitriol” that threatened the fragile mutual respect our nation had achieved over the decades of his life. Dad’s fight is still alive. In that Op-ed, he wrote, “Our judicial system helps… democracy survive.” Connecting the name Cruz Reynoso to this courthouse seems the perfect way to honor Dad’s memory.
Cornel West famously said, “Justice is what love looks like in public.” If so, then may this building, dedicated to the pursuit of justice, stand as a testament to Dad’s love for people and our love for him.
Love in Public
My Dad wrote that op-ed in the Washington Post against the rhetoric of Donald Trump. My Dad’s last published words were a stance against Trumpism.
The Mexican Repatriation Movement that sent my father as an American citizen “back” to the nation where his parents were from was very much like Trump’s current rhetoric. While I’m not a lawyer, I seem to have inherited my father’s “justice bone.” I pray that I will continue to work for the common good and defend those without power. Many with power have certainly forgotten how to discern right from wrong.
As a Christian, I believe in a God who is love. I believe my calling is to love God and to love people. With Cornel West’s words in mind, my spiritual obligation is to embrace the joy of pursuing justice. We don’t get to choose the times in which we live. The only question is: Will we live in love pursuing justice, or will we embrace the hate of the age?
Creating Reality
Unfortunately, as a nation, we have demonstrated that we are not averse to hate.
I do not believe that more Americans voted for Trump because they are yearning to be able to express their hate. I also have no doubt some did. But I think most people simply voted for their perceived self-interest. That isn’t good. It means Americans believed lies about the source of their pain and did not find behaviors that should disqualify a candidate to be… disqualifying.
There is more to unpack in that last sentence than I should take the time to unpack here. Let me make just one related point. In 2004, a George W. Bush advisor told a journalist that the journalist lived in an obsolete “reality-based community…That’s not the way the world really works anymore.… We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality…. We’re history’s actors”.
We now live in a world where some live in reality, and another portion of the nation lives in a reality created for them. Do not misunderstand me. It is not a reality created for their benefit. It is a reality created for their consumption.
This reality only works because people do not want to look behind the curtain to find the Wizard of Oz pulling levers. They prefer the performance. This also means that sexual abuse, felonious behavior, treason, hate — nothing is disqualifying. They prefer the illusion of the reality created for them, which promises comfort over reality. They prefer the lie that Biden’s economic policies have failed and Trump can easily fix the economy over the fact that the entire world went through a challenging financial time, and under Biden’s leadership, the USA weathered it remarkably well by comparison.
Choosing Mamon
There has been a shocking amount of support online recently for Luigi Mangione, who is alleged to have assassinated UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The support seems rooted in the sad reality of the callousness of the U.S. healthcare industry. An industry that routinely overlooks the common good and the good of individuals with an eye on the shareholder’s economic fortunes. The reality is that millions of Americans just followed the example of the healthcare industry. They overlooked the harm to the people of our nation for the promise of better economic times. They ignored numerous crimes and lies while excusing horrendous behavior and character in the hope that they may experience a better financial situation.
We have shown little wisdom, discernment, or character as a nation.
But that is not the hardest pill for me to swallow.
“I know your works… you are dead”
My faith is central to me. I have spent my life in the church. I’ve worked for three church-related universities. I’ve studied theology, taught theology, and published theology. I love God, and I strive to love what he loves. God loves his people. He loves the Church.
But we have lost the plot. I cannot help but think of Christ’s words to the Church of Sardis in the Book of Revelation. “I know your works; you have a name of being alive, but you are dead.”
Trump bragged about sexual assault and marital infidelity on the Access Hollywood tape, and the church shrugged.
He spewed and inspired hate, and the church shrugged.
He gave the church power, and we paid attention.
For that power, we overlooked a violent, failed coup, efforts to undermine our electoral system, numerous felonies, and so much more.
Christ upended worldly wisdom in the Sermon on the Mount. Trump is an anti-Christ who upends the Sermon on the Mount, exchanging poverty of spirit, meekness, and mercy for power, influence, and vengeance. This corrupt messiah’s false prophets declare his political and physical survival as miracles “in order to deceive, if possible, even the elect.” (Matt. 24:24) And the church clamors toward him.
Online Christian Bro-Culture likes to accuse any woman who uses her voice of having a Jezebel Spirit. But the church serves an evil king and conflates politics with faith to such a point that, like Jezebel, it falsely accuses those who stand against the wicked king, saying, ‘You have cursed God and the king.’ (1 Kings 21:10) As Jezebel sought to avenge the deaths of Ahab’s false prophets, the church often seeks to silence those who question Trump and his fellow false prophets.
Maybe it is the Church that has a Jezebel Spirit?
The Wrong Side
At some point, it hit me that it is my tribe, the Church, that is on the wrong side. I wanted to believe it was some other influence.
My siblings and I were raised in a Christian home that was faithfully involved in Church, all while my Dad was advocating for civil rights. We were raised to know the Truth of God and to pursue justice. However, of the four siblings, I am the only one who has not supported Trump. At some point, I realized our parents did not radicalize them —they were radicalized in their churches.
Without the Church, Trump would have never been president, not the first time and not the second time. Without the support of those who are called to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, the cruel, braggadocious criminal Donald Trump would never have been president.
There are so many younger people that I know who question the church and even leave the faith because of the Church’s unholy alliance with Trump. They see the hypocrisy, and it makes them question everything. It pains me that they have no framework from which to imagine a faithful life that rejects Trump while embracing Christ.
Alone like Elijah
It is easy to feel alone.
80% of white evangelicals voted for Trump. 60% of mainline Christians voted for Trump. Even over half of Black voters who attend predominately white evangelical Churches voted for Trump. In my county, 78% of people voted for Trump. A local Republican leader who attends a local church is running to head the county’s Republican party on the platform of completely eradicating the local Democratic party.
When I feel alone, when I feel despair—as I have for the last almost six weeks—I remember that when Elijah was in fear of Jezebel and feeling alone, God reminded him there were still 7,000 in Israel who had not bowed to Ahab. When Jesus told the Church of Sardis that though they were dead, He left hope by acknowledging that even among the spiritual corpses, “You have still a few persons in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes; they will walk with me, dressed in white.” (Rev. 3:4)
I’m not yet better. I still feel broken and often hopeless. I lament the moral state of a nation that could elect Donald Trump for a second term despite all we know about him. I am deeply grieved by a Church that backs an anti-Christ because he promises power. Like Elijah, I want to hide in the wilderness from the prevalent Jezebel Spirit in our culture and the Church.
40 Days and Mission
After 40 days, God challenged Elijah to return to his mission.
After 40 days in the wilderness, Jesus returned to his mission of preaching and training the disciples.
After 40 years in the wilderness, the people of Israel returned to their mission of claiming God’s gift of the promised land.
Today, it is 40 days since the election. It is time I return to my mission and embrace the joy of pursuing justice.
Image: Pamela Reynoso
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