At a restaurant today, the TV was on over the bar. I have no idea what was being said but the images were of Trump, Trump, and more Trump. The channel was the CNN. I catch glimpses of the CNN in public places at different times of day, and it’s always Trump. Day, evening, weekend. The same images playing on a loop.

Is there truly nothing more relevant happening in the world than somebody who hasn’t held public office in 1,5 years? I liked the Trump presidency. I voted for him. But I don’t spend my days thinking about him and behaving like a lovestruck groupie. And I definitely feel no need to look at photos of him every day. Or any day.

If the CNN shows these programs, I assume there are people who watch. My question is, do they realize that this is unhealthy? The only person I can imagine myself being so obsessed with is my daughter. Why are they so attached to him? Is he a father figure? The Jungian shadow? Their one true love?

The tie that binds them across the frontiers of nations, across barriers of language and differences of class and education, in defiance of religion, morality, truth, law, honor, the weaknesses of the body and the irresolutions of the mind, even unto death, is a simple conviction: It is necessary to change the world. . . They are that part of mankind which has recovered the power to live or die—to bear witness—for its faith. And it is a simple, rational faith that inspires men to live or die for it. . . It is the vision of Man without God.

It is the vision of man’s mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world. It is the vision of man’s liberated mind, by the sole force of its rational intelligence, redirecting man’s destiny and reorganizing man’s life and the world.

“Letter to My Children,” Whittaker Chambers.

This was written by Whittaker Chambers, the chief witness in the trial of the Soviet spy Alger Hiss. (And let me tell you, I was stunned to discover that there are still simple-minded folks who don’t think Hiss was a Soviet spy which is something that’s completely obvious to any Soviet person.)

Chambers’ “they” are Communists but the quote works beautifully to describe those whom today we call “the woke.” They act with the same hubris of godlike beings who believe themselves entitled to establishing a new natural order. They want to be the Logos and possess the power of creation.

Chambers says (or, rather, said back in 1959) that they are bound to be disappointed in the impotence of their efforts to remake creation. Then, he says, they might choose to destroy everything they see around them.

It’s all true, including the religious fervor of their single-minded fanaticism.