The obligatory New Year post

Let's start with a snapshot of the lay of the land shortly after noon EST on January 1, 2020.

Antisemitic violence, which had been gathering momentum throughout 2018 and 2019, spiked at the end of last year:

In October 2018, during Sabbath morning services, a white supremacist attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, murdering 11 people and wounding another six. In April 2019, in the middle of Passover, a white supremacist attacked the Chabad of Poway synagogue, murdering one person and seriously wounding another three. Both incidents started absolutely necessary conversations about the prevalence and nature of the white supremacist threat to Jews across the country.

Four people were murdered at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City by self-described Black Hebrew Israelites just weeks ago; five people were stabbed at a Hanukkah celebration in Monsey, New York; this week alone, New York police are investigating at least nine anti-Semitic attacks.

Kim Jong-Un has announced that North Korea will soon unveil a new strategic weapon. 

For the last two days, the US embassy in Baghdad has been under siege from the Iranian-backed Kataeb Hezbollah. 

Millenials are the least religious generation in the nation's history. 

And the national debt is somewhere north of $23 trillion.

Now, on to a fact about something that will transpire by year's end: Post-America will have either re-elected a narcissistic, loudmouth buffoon who is so bereft of a core set of principles that he has switched party affiliations several times throughout his adult life, who is himself not a man of Christian conviction but expects Christians to support him politically because he has signed on to policies that do much to ensure their ability to practice their faith free of harassment and oppression (because he expects, Godfather-like, to have his ring kissed for any gesture that yields a favorable outcome for any person or group), who has a track record of sexual abandon, who has an incoherent foreign policy resulting in the two developments cited above - or will have elected a radical collectivist whose policy orientation will be based on identity politics and redistribution and who will work to remove all restrictions on the extermination of fetal post-Americans.

Those offering Internet New Year reflections often feel, no matter what their general assessment of the present moment is, some kind of obligation to offer reason for hope.

Beyond the eternal paradise offered by God's grace, I can't think of any such reasons. Our societal brittleness is not going to abate. All the various tribalists on the scene are not going to drop their brand-hustling and begin defending immutable principles as they see them. Particular tribes are going to continue to interact viciously with other tribes. Our culture's rot is going to advance even more. The world stage's least savory actors are going to continue to find and exploit weaknesses in US foreign policy stemming from the current president's incoherence.

What of the argument often put forth that the key is to focus on the local level, to become involved in the civic bonds that characterize a community? That probably was a viable way to proceed even fairly recently. As 2020 unfolds, however, with diversity and inclusion officers on the payroll of an ever-increasing number of school systems, with local governments signing off on "pride" festivals, with governments, school systems and corporations all spending resources on "sustainability" measures, the community level doesn't really offer any respite from the rot that characterizes the national level. Even if your town still has a fairly robust set of institutions existing to contribute to the health of civic life, that Rotary Club or food bank or pickle ball club is going to have among its members or volunteers people whose take on the value of human freedom and dignity is the diametric opposite of yours. Conversations beyond the tasks at hand are best studiously avoided, which is hard to achieve, given the degree of entrenchment with which people belong to their various tribes.

Once Trump is reelected, which is, at this point, a fairly safe bet, mostly because an upbeat economic picture is also a safe bet, his cult following will crow about how the libs have been owned and that that is the end of the matter. They'll be so elated they'll be oblivious to the shortsightedness of that take. The not-small swath of post-American society that got "owned" is not going away. Because no attempt at persuasion, which would require putting forth a core set of principles beyond "making America great," will have been made, the Left will continue to conflate Trumpism with conservatism and see both as the enemy, and will hone new tactics for striving to defeat that enemy.

So what are the traits that will stand one in good stead as we embark on a new year and decade? Certainly courage. These are not times for the faint of heart. A good set of core principles - I recommend the three pillars of actual conservatism - will help to minimize confusion. Ultimately, there's no substitute for keeping the Truth of God's grace and sovereignty front and center in one's thoughts. The best secular paths through the cacophonous thicket are no substitute for remembering that the final victory has been won, and that we are each invited to the victory party.

It's not going to look like it on the temporal level, but He has overcome the world.