Election Results: A View from Wisconsin

How last night looks to an independent in a swing state: despite herculean efforts on the part of both parties to polarize the electorate, the vote trended purple, not red, not blue. 

Most elections went to the incumbent, including the presidency. The Democrats have a couple more US senators; the Republicans retain a solid majority in the House. Republicans now occupy 30 governors' mansions across the nation, a pickup of one. 

The Democrats held on to one US Senator slot in Wisconsin, after losing the other in 2010. In the same state, the Republicans once again won 5 out of 8 contests in the US House of Representatives. At the state level, Republicans solidified their control of all three branches of government. 

My advice to Democrats: give us the same old same old, and the country may well shift decisively in the other direction in 2014, as it did in 2010. Assuming, of course, that the GOP learns to field credible candidates, rather than has-beens like Tommy Thompson and nutcases like Akin and Mourdock.

My advice to Republicans: stop believing your own sad rhetoric about the 47%. Misanthropes deserve to lose elections.

My advice to Republican friends who consider the Bible to be the quintessential rule of faith and practice: take Psalm 72 to heart, and start making a case for smart government, not: the less government, the better. 

Comments

[John]

Hello John

My wife of 39 years was born in Wisconsin(Kenosha). I am interested in your thoughts on this. Less government is better (government and freedom are inversely proportional). The slide away from God's original patriarchal form began with the tower of Babel. The Torah was civil and religious, but mainly religious, the emphasis being on keeping the family (Israel)from which the Messiah would come pure from the other nations and laying a foundation for Jesus' sermon on the mount teaching. This is seen in the shema, love God with all you've got (which excludes anyone/thing else) and love neighbor as self in Leviticus. Of course, this thought can be carried to the "don't get involved with government in any way including voting" view. I voted.

I have no interest whatsoever in arguing. I'm just interested in your thoughts.

Thanks..........John

[John Hobbins]

Hi John,

Glad to have a conversation. Here are some thoughts.

When the Bible talks about everyone doing what they please, that's not a good thing. Freedom in the Bible is not freedom in that sense, but freedom from oppression, sin, sickness, and the devil, and freedom for service to God.

For the rest, I don't think it makes sense to play down the sweeping nature of the claims Torah places on human life. Indeed, the idea that the state has its own rules or that the market has its own rules about which God has nothing to say is completely foreign to biblical thinking.

[Bob MacDonald]

Good to hear your voice again John - yes to Psalm 72! When the poor and needy are delivered from fraud and violence then the wealth that is in the body will prosper. The juxtaposition of these two things in the Psalm is quite obvious.

Sorry I am not coming to SBL - maybe next year - but I am doing the carnival this month and also having a whale of a time singing the Hebrew according to the shape of the te'amim.

[Mitchell Powell]

I'll accept Psalm 72 as a relevant argument for the continuation of modern welfare state if you accept Psalm 72 as an argument for exacting tribute from military less competent nations instead of sending aid.

But until then, it's hard not to lean closer to Hector Avalos's view: that the Bible is so riddled with stuff that both believers and unbelievers consider to be a bad idea for this world, that it's better just to leave it aside when doing politics.

It seems to me that when Scripture is used as a justification for particular policies it is used in a highly selective manner, except for a few theocrats who nobody listens to. And even they've gotta be a bit selective.

[Bob MacDonald]

re - exacting tribute, I can't argue here - but the implementation of the iron rod over smashed pots cannot be seen as a nationally-centred reality in the context of the whole Psalter. Psalm 89 recognizes that lament begins at home.

[Mitchell Powell]

Who said anything about an iron rod?

[michael]

I'm glad to see this blog active again. You have no idea how encouraging it is to know that there's a UW Hebrew alum out there who's not only aware of the two millennia or so of post-Biblical Hebrew literature, but actually sees value in it. That sort of attitude is not currently in vogue around here...

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