Providence Forgotten

The midterms are not far away. Candidate endorsements are already coming in droves from Congressional leadership with the primaries they hope to win scheduled to take place months from now. At this point, it is safe to say that the honeymoon of President Trump’s victory has come to an end. This, of course, does not mean that the historic victory in 2024 is any less so, however it comes with a predictable decrease in enthusiasm for the Republican “mandate” along with increased scrutiny of the Republican agenda. While the idea of a “divine” influence in the 47th President’s victory that many on the right claim has already been subjected to attacks from the Left’s fiercest spokesmen, they are only going to increase in severity and occurrence as Democrats seek to steal the House from the Republicans' already tedious grip. On the other hand, in a midterm as consequential as this year’s, it would be utterly tone deaf for the hopeful Right to campaign solely on the “Providential” win that occurred a year and three months ago. Though the question remains, was it ever an accurate description of Donald Trump’s victory in the first place?

As with many topics I observe, I find the 2024 election tells much deeper of a story than the mere electoral outcome. 

Prior to President Trump’s second victory, I bristled every time a supporter called the upcoming race providential. Of course, my hesitation did not last long. When Georgia was called for President-elect Trump, I did not delay my consideration of his swing state sweep as anything short of guided by the hand of God. A second term of strong America-First values would undoubtedly usher in a much-needed era of peace, patriotism, and positivity for the beleaguered country.

If this was Providence, though, then what does Providence really imply? If something guided by the hand of God is still incredibly difficult to win, is Providence really God’s work, or simply the resolve of a group of people to achieve a goal they set for themselves? If Providence really was to thank, would the polls and predictions still have been so close? Would He have allowed the lawfare that played out to even happen? In short, I could not see the providential impact of the election because I had looked in the wrong places. I was convinced that Providence meant that there must be an abundance of goodness, and not one iota of opposition. I did not consider that in our fallen world, the political order along with those who power it will not always reflect the will of our creator. 

Our society does not always reflect God’s vision. We cannot deduce that the world lacks evidence of God’s guiding hand simply because of the presence of evil. We have forgotten the meaning of Providence, and in doing so, have failed to see much of the goodness that still works in our world.

Providence does not appear only in the absence of evil. To the contrary, history’s most widely agreed upon instances of Providence are in times of overwhelming evil, when the only way good can prevail is for God to intervene. Those that crucified Jesus did something as far from good as possible, but we don’t remember it as Bad Friday, because in the end, Jesus’ sacrifice for our sin and conquest of death was still good. We still mourn the evil that crucified our Lord through fasting and solemn prayer, but it is with hope and anticipation for the celebration of His resurrection that we endure it with. 

The vigilance of those who campaign against the health of our nation don’t indicate an absence of Providence, but instead as a symbol of the larger struggle: the conflict between those that, for example, decry the murder of the unborn and those that advocate for it on a national scale. Providence does not appear only in the absence of evil, but, by definition, must occur because of evil. If sin did not burden the world, God would have no need to intervene in the affairs of men. It was nothing other than God’s merciful hand that allowed President Trump to come within millimeters of death, united such a motley group, and allowed for American greatness to return to the world stage and continue to fight for the nation’s original principles of truth and justice.

Providence is not always unexplainable. As part of the effort to discount the significance of President Trump’s victory, “expert” analysts have already begun to explain away the logistics behind how he won all seven swing states, garnered record numbers of Black, Latino, Jewish and Unionized voters, and barely finished the popular vote: “It’s because of the conflict in the Middle East!” “It’s because of the crumbling economy (‘that Biden had no responsibility for,’ many will add)!” “It’s because Trump was more attuned to the cultural heartbeat than Harris was!” It makes sense that our misunderstanding of His involvement in our lives mutes our gratitude for His work. If, as I once did, I were to argue that Providence was apparent in the bloody eight-year-long birth of these united states while remaining unconvinced of the presence of the same God in the 2024 election. The ability to rationalize a historical event does not disprove the presence of Providence. God gave us the ability to reason so that we would have the capacity to appreciate His creation and to love Him in return.

We have begun to forget both what Providence means and implies, conflating God’s involvement in our affairs with the notion of miraculousness: the ascent of history above human ration. Today, even those who claim to believe in both of those notions believe that Providence must always invoke an unexplainable phenomenon that occurs in the absence of evil. However God’s will is not to separate Himself from His creation, but to balance our free will-to-do with His will-be-done. It is His Providence that guides us in the fight to save our country, and our hope that must sustain our effort until victory.

With that, I fear, I once again over-intellectualized an election.