Today in Language: There Is Hope After Carnage

On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump talked about "this American carnage" in his inaugural speech. As with almost everything he spoke about publicly, he did not know what he was talking about. In reality, he brought the carnage with him. 

According to the dictionary, carnage is "great and usually bloody slaughter or injury (as in battle)." It would appear that Trump's usage was metaphorical. My usage here, as the usage of many others over the last two weeks, has turned from being largely metaphorical (do not try to recount Trump's "achievements" to me) to more closely literal (yes, he approved of the Capitol riot and storming and was responsible for it to an extent yet to be officially determined).

• The last four years brought metaphorical carnage for the oppressed. Read "It will take years to understand the abuse of immigrants and refugees under the Trump administration."
  
• The last four years included metaphorical carnage of republican, democratic norms of U.S. society. Read "We Freaking Warned You."
  
• The last four years developed economic carnage in the name of no apparently coherent philosophy or policy. Read "Trump's Negative Effect on Economic Growth."
  
• The last year brought social and health carnage in ignoring the simplest methods to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Read "The deep ideological roots of Trump’s botched coronavirus response."
  
• Most sadly, to me as a Christian, the last four years exposed the theological and moral carnage of staggering swaths of American Christianity. The tragedy, of course, is that it never had to be this way: read "Overturning Roe v. Wade isn't worth compromising with Trump, my fellow evangelicals."
  

It has taken much too long to get to this point, and at times it felt like we might not make it here. But we made it and I can finally and factually state: Donald Trump should never have been president and he no longer is. This means that there is hope, light at the end of this dark tunnel of fours years of metaphorical and literal carnage. Thank God, for hope and light ultimately come from him, when he raises up leaders, and when he brings them down. Thank God.