Beware of the Golden Calf

With less than five weeks to go until Election Day, the nightmare that conservatives have been living in for the past couple of years seems to be almost over, or at least, this is what some have been saying.  While certainly there will be great euphoria as conservatives are elected to all levels of government this November, there is a growing mentality among conservatives that threatens the long-term sustainability of the movement.

In Exodus 24 in the Bible God instructs Moses to ascend Mount Sinai so that he could provide the people of Israel with laws and commandments that would benefit and sustain the society through their journey to the Promised Land.  These laws and commandments are detailed in chapters 24 through 31.  In chapter 32, apparently the people of Israel had grown tired of waiting for they pressured Aaron to continue the journey.  Here is the relevant text:

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” ² So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” ³ So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. ⁴ And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” (Exodus 32:1-5 ESV)

There are several interesting parallels between the situation described in Exodus and our current political climate.  First, when Moses left the camp, there was a vacuum of power.  Whether or not you believe that President Bush was a conservative, it is clear that, as President, he was dubbed as the standard-bearer of the conservative movement.  When President Obama was elected in 2008 and conservatives across all levels of government were booted to the curb, there was a similar vacuum of power.  Conservatives found themselves for the first time in over a decade out of power on the federal level and in many states.

Second, because of the power vacuum left by Moses, the people rallied together and approached Aaron to do something about their situation.  In the past two years, we have witnessed the incredible rise of the Tea Party movement, a movement not built or controlled by the establishment, power political figures or organizations, but a movement built of loosely organized grassroots coalitions.  Both the Israelites and today’s Tea Party movement understood the gravity of the times.

Third, the pressure of the Israelites forced Aaron to create a golden calf as a substitute for the presence of God.  Today, much of the Tea Party movement is placing their hopes in the changes that will be wrought in November of this year and in 2012.  I would never argue that elections do not matter, because they certainly do, and I would never say that short term political goals and results are meaningless, because they are not.  There is, however, a pervasive and seemingly irresistible mentality among conservatives right now that winning at the ballot box is going to erase all of the past few years and place us back onto some sort of path that will lead us back to some golden age that we have lost.  To this mentality I say, beware of the golden calf.

When progressives turned out en masse in 2008 for President Obama, there was a similar mentality that one man was going to be able to usher in a new era of politics with the expectation that the lives of all would economically and socially improve overnight.  I imagine the Israelites must have thought similarly of Moses and their own futures after their miraculous trek across the Red Sea.  Yet, like Jacob who woke up to discover the woman he had married was Leah (Genesis 29), those who had expectations of President Obama as a sort of political messiah have been sorely disappointed with the results.

November 2nd is an important date for conservatives, but regardless of the outcomes, it is not an end.  You may hear some pundits claim victory and tell the movement that “we have arrived,” but this is a mirage, a fashioned image that we must resist at all costs.  In politics, there is no final resting place; we must continue to be engaged, continue to refine our activism, continue to hold our elected officials accountable, and most importantly, continue to advocate for the freedom and prosperity of all Americans.