It's How We Finish
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Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) raised the gavel in triumph, hammered it, then laid it down. He scanned the House floor where members of his own caucus had nearly come to blows after their 14th ballot had failed to declare the 53rd Speaker of the House of Representatives mere hours before. McCarthy’s gaze then widened to include Members on both sides of the aisle. With a wink and a smile the embattled, yet nascent, Speaker from Bakersfield California said: “My father always told me: It’s not how you start. It’s how you finish.”
As the clock ticked across the threshold from the second anniversary of the chaos also known as January 6th to a new day, clarity came to America. One hour into January 7, 2023 the 15th ballot cleared the way for Rep. Kevin McCarthy to claim leadership of the lower chamber of the U.S. Congress. McCarthy, who publicly condemned the previous president’s attempted coup two years ago, then posed for pictures with him at Mara Lago months later, now sits two breaths from the presidency of the United States of America.
Clarity has come. And with it, America now knows it is about to descend into dangerous chaos for the next two years.
In his first speech as Speaker, McCarthy promised to “finish strong for the American people.” McCarthy’s vision of strength seems ho-hum enough. At face value, his calls for economic flourishing, respect for law enforcement, the prosecution of criminals, community safety and security at the border seem like things any American should want.
Never mind that economic flourishing requires stability. Stability requires the ability to pass a budget. McCarthy’s Insurrection Caucus promises to hold America’s debt-ceiling process hostage to its own murky demands. If America defaults on her debt global economic melt-down will follow. Likewise, economic stability requires strong democratic institutions and accountability to the rule of law. Election denial hacks at America’s democratic institutions and hobbles the rule of law. The House GOP caucus is now run by 154 election deniers—including the Speaker, himself.
Never mind that the man McCarthy snapped pics with—the former president who his subsequent silence has protected—conceived and coordinated a violent coup that killed at least five law enforcers. And never mind that the GOP is committed to defunding the highest-ranking law enforcement agency in the nation—the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
Never mind that community safety directly correlates with economic and social stability. Are streets well lit? Are public schools well-funded? Do families have access to healthy food and green space? Are renters protected from slumlords? Are women and children protected from domestic violence? Are police officers committed to the safety of every resident in every community or only to the safety of communities with the highest tax brackets? Are workers protected from exploitation? Do they have clear paths for advancement in their fields? All of these factors impact community safety.
And, never mind that true border security does not turn away asylum-seekers. It does not separate children from parents; locking them in cages like dogs in a kennel. It does not close its eyes to the reality that immigrants enter without authorization because our nation has few effective paths for authorized immigration. And true border security does not erase from memory that the United States is a signatory to the United Nations 1967 Protocol on the Status of Refugees. Decades ago, Americans promised the world we would step up when the most vulnerable people in the world—people without a country—came knocking at our border. When we fail asylum-seekers, we fail ourselves.
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But, for me the tell that America is about to descend into the abyss was the standing ovation for McCarthy’s indictment of “woke indoctrination of our students.” The entire GOP rose to its feet in cheering agreement with a white nationalist sentiment, once marginalized, now center stage in the ruling party of The People’s House. This comment received more enthusiastic and longer applause than any other in McCarthy’s speech, because most actually believe God created America for white people. White people are God’s elect on this land. White people—white men to be exact—are the ones God ordained to flourish here, to be safe here, to be protected by and from the law here, and to immigrate here. If they did not believe this, their actions would work to ensure the flourishing of all. They do not.
So, white men and their women and POC allies—who offer moral cover in exchange for the crumbs of power they catch—stood to their feet, cheered and joined the Speaker in an attempt to shame writers, librarians, teachers, administrators and school boards who dare to disturb the pervasive white coma induced by fabricated fables of apple pie, cherry blossoms, wooden teeth and baseball. Each clap claimed immoral authority over truth-tellers determined to resurrect the buried testimonies of people who bore the weight of the oppression that secured white comfort, entrenched it and protected it.
It is clear. We are about to descend into the abyss. We must gird ourselves. The next two years will be painful. The House GOP will bring the smothering chaos associated with the previous president back into our news cycles and into our living rooms. Now—in the interim between 15 ballots and the 2024 election—is the time for us to reach deep within ourselves to reconnect with our own core—the dignity and dream that creator God has for each of our lives. Now—right now—is also the time to stretch and reach for those relationships broken within the previous chaos.
As the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss iii, author of the newly released, Dancing in the Darkness, explained in a recent “Kitchen Table Conversation” with me on IGLive: “Chaos has been utilized to break communities and people that are attempting to transform, to liberate, and to make a shift in society.”
We cannot let the chaos win.
Now is the time for clarity—for truth-seeking, truth-listening, and truth-telling.
Now is the time for people of actual faith to grab hold of God’s hand and let Creator lead the way to repair; to reparation and restitution.
Now is the time to cultivate anchoring spirituality with strength to weather the chaos; spirituality that reconnects us to God, to ourselves, to “the other,” to the earth and to the process of deciding how we will live together in our towns, cities and nation.
McCarthy spoke of finishing strong. I say, what we do now will determine how we finish.
Dig deep. Now is the time for actual faith.
President and founder of FreedomRoad.us, Lisa Sharon Harper is a writer, podcaster and public theologian. Lisa is author of critically acclaimed book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family And The World—And How To Repair It All.
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