Political Desire: A Challenge for U.S. Democracy

Political desire into democracy will not go.

Political desire feeds on the ideal. It does not compromise. It hates frustration. It must have exactly what it wants, its ideal, or . . . else. Democracy is perpetually threatened by a people’s political desire.

In the U.S., Congress is where the ideal goes to die. Political desire rages. So, “good” politicians have become experts at deflecting and/or deferring the political desire of Americans. Deflection might look like blaming those people; it’s their fault you can’t have what you want! Get rid of them, and you will have what you have always wanted! Deferral often times takes the form of calls for more time; just keep electing so and so (and their party), and you will finally get what you want. Deflection may also take pious forms, as in calls for patience, for civility, and so forth and so on. The goal is to keep political desire aflame, to inspire loyalty to party (i.e.,  partisan madness), all the while trying to prevent it from burning the citadel of democracy to the ground.

Political desire consents to be managed for a time (provided that the fantasy of possessing the ideal is kept alive), but desire qua desire is ungovernable. And we are living in a moment where it is manifestly clear that political desire is no longer willing to be distracted or deferred (think January 6th, think Trump 2024, think unrelenting calls for President Biden to step aside because he is old). Political desire is once again calling for revolution, this time for freedom from the boredom of democratic government. Once again political desire is revealing attempts to successfully manage it as irresistible, pure fantasy.  

It is a fantasy to think that political desire can be managed forever. This fantasy is, however, maintained by two powerful forces in American political life: the state and religion, specifically Christianity. As noted above, the state’s management of desire keeps alive the idea that possessing an ideal (or realizing one) is actually possible, imminent even. Americans just need to make the right electoral choice(s). Likewise, religion keeps alive the idea that the ideal (i.e., God) can be incarnated (a second time) in a particular political candidate.

Take, for example, the MAGA slogan, “Jesus is my Savior. Trump is my President.” The slogan explicitly makes a distinction between Jesus Christ (for Christians, God made flesh) and Trump. Implicitly, however, the slogan functions to keep Jesus and Trump in very close proximity to one another. That proximity is the basis of the MAGA assertion that only Trump can “save America.”

Idealism is the miracle grow of inherently ravenous political desire. Idealism is the transcendent, immaterial (or metaphysical) basis of political revolution(s). Paul of Tarsus (or, as the C/church knows him, Saint Paul) understood this well, and he offered an alternative to it, to the revolution(s) of political desire, to the idealism(s) of the state and of religion.

Paul offers us an a(n) (a)theology of revolution (without revolution). His alternative to political desire is a redeemed political desire, a desire without idealism and so without revolution: a no less revolutionary messianic desire of immanence rooted, not in an ideal, but in the material body of everyday existence.

(to be continued . . . ).