Almost two thousand years ago, numerous witnesses reported, loudly and often — and at great risk to their personal safety — that they had seen a Jewish rabbi cure the incurable, defy gravity, command the weather, eliminate food scarcity, and restore life to the dead and buried. 

As if these reports were not sufficiently incredible, these same witnesses testified that, after a sham trial resulted in the murder of their teacher, He rose to life again and walked among them for several more weeks. It is difficult to imagine, and impossible to cite, a more credible explanation other than the one offered by this Jewish rabbi Himself, and by these witnesses. 

As audacious as it may seem, history records that this Jewish rabbi put it this way:

“I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.”

— Jesus, son of Joseph, of Nazareth 
(Gospel of John, 14:6-7)

That is to say, He was (and is) the Author of all creation, and therefore retains all authority over reality itself. 

In all the centuries that followed, no one has issued a convincing rebuttal. We need not even mention the countless miracles attributed to His power since that time. No rival to the same authority has asserted a more persuasive claim, nor come remotely close to matching the evidence that was amassed in just a three-year span nearly two millennia ago. 

Moreover, although not everyone elects to believe the evidence offered by these men — who endured torture and death rather than repudiate their testimony — no other religion claims a larger share of believers. And notwithstanding the manifest flaws of its leaders and every single one of its believers, the Church founded by this Jewish rabbi after just a three-year ministry remains the only institution that has survived through all the ensuing years. 

Intriguingly, for the first time, an American citizen and Catholic priest now presides as the earthly leader of this Church, an institution which worships as God, the Son, the Jewish rabbi who claimed to be the Truth. 

America, meanwhile, was founded on a creed. Set forth in the Declaration of Independence, that creed credits all humanity dignity as arising from the authorship of each individual by one Creator. The founding rationale of our nationhood is that the nature of humanity, created by one God, gives rise to enduring rights — that is, to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. 

With respect to the third pillar in this trio of natural rights, let us clarify. The pursuit of happiness is just a warmer and fuzzier way of expressing our right to pursue the Truth. All valid American law must recognize, protect, and ensure the continued right of all citizens (and all humanity) to pursue relationship with that Jewish rabbi who — as so many believe so ardently — authored reality itself. If we are indeed called into relationship with this same Jesus who professed to be “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” there can be no “pursuit of happiness” apart from the Truth. 

And therein lies the rub. The current tumult in the cultural and political realm arises from the exponentially growing chasm between, on the one hand, the claims asserted by those who profess to be our leaders, and on the other hand, Truth itself. As the country music singer puts it so well:

“Oh the trouble with the truth is it’s always the same ol’ thing.
So hard to forget, so impossible for me to change.
Every time I try to fight it, I know I’ll be left to blame.”

— Patty Loveless (Epic 1996),
in words penned by Gary Nicholson

Neither of the two dominant political parties, nor the media establishment, will restore credibility with the American people unless and until they reconcile their past contradictions with Truth itself. Restoring trust in any portion of the establishment requires a cease-fire in the war with reality, and with the Author of reality. 

To his credit, political journalist Mark Halperin — at times, a singular voice crying out in the media wilderness — has been emphasizing the imperative that his colleagues acknowledge their complicity in the coverup of the Biden Chapter in the “Emperor has no clothes” saga of American politics. But even Mr. Halperin professes to be mystified as to why “Make America Great Again” enthusiasts are so reluctant to criticize the excesses of President Trump, then candidate Trump, and now President Trump, once again. Even among the most politically astute, then, there remains widespread under-appreciation for the full effects of the establishment’s ongoing, false narrative. One cannot overstate the extent to which Americans simply no longer trust any of the dogma from those who have proved so complicit in selling the public “Fake News”. 

Historically, Americans expect politicians to engage in a certain amount of exaggeration (and even outright lies) about factual matters, and particularly factual matters about their own personal failings or the mixed success of their policy prescriptions. It is easy to recall the standard examples: The doctors and media lied about the health of FDR; Kennedy lied to his wife; and Nixon lied to the country. Perhaps the “Big Bang” moment in America’s troubled relationship with Truth itself can be attributed to the lies of Bill Clinton, under oath and without consequence, about which he never truly showed remorse. 

Clinton exemplified the war on Truth itself. Although Nixon had paid the price for a coverup, all that was required in order to survive scandal was to lack any shame whatsoever, to persist in lies and to persist in power. False claims, even under oath, were deemed inconsequential. Decades later, the entire rationale for Biden’s presidency was the sum of (a) his own ravenous, lifelong ambition for the office for its own sake, and (b) the opportunism of Biden and his cronies in capitalizing on an establishment that disdained Donald Trump so completely that defeating him was necessary at any cost. The notion that Joe Biden had an agenda, much less the physical or mental capability, worthy of the electorate’s consideration, was always a lie. It was always, above all else, about obtaining or retaining power, without regard for the Truth.

It should not be especially surprising, then, that Joe Biden and his cronies had taken the Clintonian lessons to heart and had attempted to extend their reign another four years. From the perspective of those who had always recognized the emptiness of the Biden wardrobe, his rapidly diminishing capacity was hardly newsworthy. The merits of a Biden presidency were always, as Donald Trump often attests, Fake News — part of a bigger set of lies, the false dogma embraced by the establishment. What became newsworthy was, at long last, a significant portion of the establishment decided they could no longer fool themselves, much less the public, with Biden as their standard-bearer. 

Sadly, this does not mean they have exited the foolish business of fooling themselves, or of trying to fool everyone else, with false dogma. Witness the litany of false dogmas that at least one political party, and sometimes both political parties, as well as the establishment media, have never effectively repudiated. Whether one wants to cite ideological wokism (contradicting the reality of birth sex), ideological feminism (contradicting the reality of pre-born personhood), ideological judicial activism (contradicting the reality of a written Constitution), or ideological “entitlementism” (contradicting the reality of mathematics), the nation has been steeped in obviously and radically false dogma for a long time. 

Joe Biden’s alienation from the Truth began, if not with his first known case of plagiarism, then with his repeated claims to faithful Catholicism, concurrent with his espousal of unlimited abortion. The Democratic party cannot make credible claims to be the defender of the vulnerable while showing no regard whatsoever for the plight of pre-born babies. Most recently, the assertion by Donald Trump that he is the most fiscally conservative president in history cannot be reconciled with his pledge to ignore the insolvency of the major entitlement programs. 

Americans who recognized these false narratives were unsurprisingly hesitant to trust the establishment attraction to more novel narratives that looked suspiciously akin to false ideologies. Many questioned the rationale for vaccine mandates and mass school closures. Many questioned whether, because of the way the presidential election of 2020 was conducted, it was even possible to determine who had “won” a majority of validly awarded electoral college votes. Many questioned the use of the word “insurrection” to describe a small, unarmed group of trespassers constituting, at worst, a riot. 

At every turn, Americans saw purveyors of questionable, dogmatic narratives, by the same establishment that repeatedly failed to repudiate those same dogmas that were so manifestly false. A majority of the American people cancelled whatever remained of their trust in the obviously-compromised integrity of various establishment academic, media, and political institutions. 

Establishment institutions cannot, as did the Roman ruler who presided over that infamous murder of a Jewish rabbi nearly two thousand years ago, merely question the existence of Truth, or wash their hands of the matter. They will never recover credibility until they can assert, in all seriousness, their willingness to “speak truth to power”. They cannot pursue power at the expense of Truth. Rather, they must re-dedicate themselves to the pursuit of Truth. The path to making America great again begins with that commitment to the pursuit of Truth.